res 


JEROME  K.  JEROME'S  BOOKS 

AU'l  'HOR  'S  EDI'l  'ION. 


NOVEL    NOTES. 

Illustrated  by  J.  GOLiCH,  A.  S.  BOYD,  HAL  HURST, 
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DIARY  OF  A  PILGRIMAGE 

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IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF  AN  IDLE 
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STAGE-LAND. 

CURIOUS  HABITS  AND  CUSTOMS  OF  ITS 

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$1.00  ;  i6mo,  paper,  300. 


NOVEL    NOTES 


JEROME   K.  JEROME 


ILLUSTRATED   BY 


J.  GtJLicH,  A.  S.  BOYD,  HAL  HURST,  GEO.  HUTCHINSON, 
Miss  HAMMOND,  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY   HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1893 


COPYRIGHT,  1892,  1893, 

BY 
JEROME    K.  JEROME. 


PROLOGUE. 


| EARS  ago,  when  I  was  very  small,  we  lived 
in  a  great  house  in  a  long,  straight,  brown- 
colored  street,  in  the  East  End  of  London- 
It  was  a  noisy,  crowded  street  in  the  day- 
time ;  but  a  silent,  lonesome  street  at  night,  when  the 
gas  lights,  few  and  far  between,  partook  of  the  char- 
acter of  lighthouses  rather  than  of  illuminants,  and 
the  tramp,  tramp  of  the  policeman- on- his  long  beat 
seemed  to  be  ever  drawing  nearer,  or  fading  away,  except 
for  brief  moments  when  the  footsteps  ceased,  as  he 
paused  to  rattle  a  door  or  window,  or  to  flash  his  lan- 
tern into  some  dark  passage  leading  down  toward  the 
river. 

The  house  had  many  advantages,  so  my  father  would 
explain  to  friends  who  expressed  surprise  at  his  choosing 
such  a  residence,  and  among  these  was  included  in  my 
own  small  morbid  mind  the  circumstance  that  its  back 
windows  commanded  an  uninterrupted  view  of  an 
ancient  and  much  peopled  churchyard.  Often  of  a 
night  would  I  steal  from  between  the  sheets,  and  climb- 
ing upon  the  high  oak  chest  that  stood  before  my  bed- 
room window,  sit  peering  down  fearfully  upon  the  aged 
gray  tombstones,  far  below,  wondering  whether  the 
shadows  that  crept  among  them  might  not  be  ghosts — 
soiled  ghosts  that  had  lost  their  natural  whiteness  by 
long  exposure  to  the  city's  smoke,  and  had  grown  dingy, 
like  the  snow  that  sometimes  lay  there. 


2055964 


2  PROLOGUE. 

I  persuaded  myself  that  they  were  ghosts,  and  came 
at  length  to  have  quite  a  friendly  feeling  for  them.  I, 
wondered  what  they  thought  when  they  saw  the  fading 
letters  of  their  own  names  upon  the  stones,  whether  they 
remembered  themselves  and  wished  they  were  alive 
again,  or  whether  they  were  happier  as  they  were.  But 
that  seemed  a  still  sadder  idea. 

One  night,  as  I  sat  there  watching,  I  felt  a  hand  upon 
my  shoulder.  I  was  not  frightened,  because  it  was  a 
soft  gentle  hand  that  I  well  knew,  so  I  merely  laid  my 
cheek  against  it. 

"  What's  mumma's  naughty  boy  doing  out  of  bed  ? 
Shall  I  beat  him  ? "  And  the  other  hand  was  laid 
against  my  other  cheek,  and  I  could  feel  the  soft  curls 
mingling  with  my  own. 

"  Only  looking  at  the  ghosts,  ma,"  I  answered. 
"  There's  such  a  lot  of  'em  down  there."  Then  I  added, 
musingly,  "I  wonder  what  it  feels  like  to  be  a  ghost." 

My  mother  said  nothing,  but  took  me  up  in  her  arms, 
and  carried  me  back  to  bed,  and  then,  sitting  down 
beside  me,  and  holding  my  hand  in  hers, — there  was 
not  so  very  much  difference  in  the  size, — began  to  sing 
in  that  low  caressing  voice  of  hers  that  always  made  me 
feel,  for  the  time  being,  that  I  wanted  to  be  a  good  boy, 
a  song  she  often  used  to  sing  to  me,  and  that  I  have 
never  heard  anyone  else  sing  since,  and  should  not  care 
to. 

But  while  she  sang,  something  fell  on  my  hand  that 
cause  me  to  sit  up  and  insist  on  examining  her  eyes. 
She  laughed ;  rather  a  strange,  broken  little  laugh,  I 
thought,  and  said  it  was  nothing,  and  told  me  to  lie  still 
and  go  to  sleep.  So  I  wriggled  down  again  and  shut  my 
eyes  tight,  but  I  could  not  understand  what  had  make 
her  cry. 


PROLOGUE.  3 

Poor  little  mother,  she  had  a  notion,  founded  evidently 
upon  inborn  belief  rather  than  upon  observation,  that  all 
children  were  angels,  and  that,  in  consequence,  an  alto- 
gether exceptional  demand  existed  for  them  in  a  certain 
other  place,  where  there  are  more  openings  for  angels, 
rendering  their  retention  in  this  world  difficult  and  unde- 
pendable.  My  talk  about  ghosts  must  have  made  that 
foolishly  fond  heart  ache  with  a  vague  dread  that  night, 
and  for  many  a  night  onward,  I  fear. 

For  some  time  after  this  I  would  often  look  up  to  find 
my  mother's  eyes  fixed  upon  me.  Especially  closely  did 
she  watch  me  at  feeding  times,  and  on  these  occasions, 
as  the  meal  progressed,  her  face  would  acquire  an  ex- 
pression of  satisfaction  and  relief. 

Once,  during  dinner,  I  heard  her  whisper  to  my 
father  (for  children  are  not  quite  so  deaf  as  their  elders 
think)  :  "  He  seems  to  eat  all  right." 

"  Eat  ! "  replied  my  father  in  the  same  penetrating 
undertone,  "  if  he  dies  of  anything,  it  will  be  of  eating." 

So  my  little  mother  grew  less  troubled,  and  as  the 
days  went  by  saw  reason  to  think  that  my  brother  angels 
might  consent  to  do  without  me  for  yet  a  while  longer  ; 
and  I,  putting  away  the  child  with  his  ghostly  fancies, 
became,  in  course  of  time,  a  grown-up  person,  and  ceased 
to  believe  in  ghosts,  together  with  many  other  things  that, 
perhaps,  it  were  better  for  a  man  if  he  did  believe  in. 

But  the  memory  of  that  dingy  graveyard,  and  of  the 
shadows  that  dwell  therein,  came  back  to  me  very  vividly 
the  other  day,  for  it  seemed  to  me  as  though  I  were  a 
ghost  myself,  gliding  through  the  silent  streets  where 
once  I  had  passed  swiftly,  full  of  life. 

Diving  into  a  long  unopened  drawer,  I  had  by  chance 
drawn  forth  a  dusty  volume  of  manuscript,  labeled 
upon  its  torn  brown  paper  cover,  NOVEL  NOTES. 


4  PROLOGUE. 

The  scent  of  dead  days  clung  to  its  dogs'-eared  pages  ; 
and,  as  it  lay  open  before  me,  my  memory  wandered 
back  to  the  summer  evenings — not  so  very  long  ago, 
perhaps,  if  one  but  adds  up  the  years,  but  a  long,  long 
while  ago  if  one  measures  time  by  feeling — when  four 
friends  had  sat  together  making  it,  who  would  never  sit 
together  any  more.  With  each  crumpled  leaf  I  turned, 
the  uncpmfortable  conviction  that  I  was  only  a  ghost 
grew  stronger.'  The  handwriting  was  my  own,  but  the 
words  were  the  words  of  a  stranger,  so  that  as  I  read  I 
wondered  to  myself,  saying:  Did  I  ever  think  this? 
Did  I  really  hope  that  ?  Did  I  plan  to  do  this  ?  Did 
I  resolve  to  be  such  ?  Does  life,  then,  look  so  to  the  eyes 
of  a  young  man  ?  not  knowing  whether  to  smile  or  sigh. 

The  book  was  a  compilation,  half  diary,  half  memo- 
randa. In  it  lay  the  record  of  many  musings,  of  many 
talks,  and  out  of  it — selecting  what  seemed  suitable, 
adding,  altering,  and  arranging,  I  have  shaped  the 
chapters  that  hereafter  follow. 

That  I  have  a  right  to  do  so  I  have  fully  satisfied  my 
own  conscience — an  exceptionally  fussy  one.  Of  the 
four  joint  authors  he  whom  I  call  "  MacShaughnassy  "  has 
laid  aside  his  title  to  all  things  beyond  six  feet  of  sun- 
scorched  ground  in  the  African  veldt  ;  while  from  him 
I  have  designated  "  Brown  "  I  have  borrowed  but  little, 
and  that  little  I  may  fairly  claim  to  have  made  my  own 
by  reason  of  the  artistic  merit  with  which  I  have  embel- 
lished it.  Indeed,  in  thus  taking  a  few  of  his  bald  ideas 
and  shaping  them  into  readable  form,  am  I  not  doing 
him  a  kindness,  and  thereby  returning  good  for  evil  ? 
For  has  he  not,  slipping  from  the  high  ambition  of  his 
youth,  sunk  ever  downward  step  by  step,  until  he  has  be- 
come a  critic,  and,  therefore,  mynatural  enemy.  Does 
he  not,  in  the  columns  of  a  certain  journal  of  large  pre- 


PROLOG UL.  5 

tension  but  small  circulation  call  me  'Arry  (without  an 
"  H,"  the  satirical  rogue)  and  is  not  his  contempt  for 
the  English  speaking  people  based  chiefly  upon  the  fact 
that  some  of  them  read  my  books  !  But  in  the  days  of 
Bloomsbury  lodgings  and  first-night  pits  we  thought 
each  other  clever. 

From  "  Jephson  "  I  hold  a  letter,  dated  from  a  station 
deep  in  the  heart  of  the  Queensland  bush.  "  Do  what 
you  like  about  it,  dear  boy,"  the  letter  runs',  "  so  long  as  you 
keep  me  out  of  it.  Thanks  for  your  complimentary  regrets, 
but  I  cannot  share  them.  I  was  never  fitted  for  a  literary 
career.  Lucky  for  me,  I  found  it  out  in  time.  Some  poor 
devils  don't.  (I'm  not  getting  at  you,  old  man.  We  read 
all  your  stuff,  and  like  it  very  much.  Time  hangs  a  bit 
heavy,  you  know,  here,  in  the  winter,  and  we  are  glad  of 
almost  anything. )  This  life  suits  me  better.  I  love  to  feel 
my  horse  between  my  thighs,  and  the  sun  upon  my  skin. 
And  there  are  the  youngsters  growing  up  about  us,  and  the 
hands  to  look  after,  and  the  stock.  I  dare  say  it  seems  a  very 
commonplace,  unintellectual  life  to  you,  but  it  satisfies  my 
nature  more  than  the  writing  of  books  could  ever  do.  Be- 
sides, there  are  too  many  authors  as  it  is.  The  world  is  so 
busy  reading  and  writing  it  has  no  time  left  for  thinking. 
You  II  tell  me,  of  course,  that  books  are  thought,  but  that  is 
only  the  jargon  of  the  Press.  You  come  out  here,  old  man, 
and  sit  as  I  do  sometimes  for  days  and  nights  together  alone 
with  the  dumb  cattle  on  an  upheaved  island  of  earth,  as  it 
were,  jutting  out  into  the  deep  sky,  and  you  will  know  that 
they  are  not.  What  a  man  thinks — really  thinks — goes- 
down  into  him  and  grows  in  silence.  What  a  man  writes 
in  books  are  the  thoughts  that  he  thinks  will  read  well. " 

Poor  "  Jephson  "  !   he   promised   so  well  at  one  time. 
But  he  always  had  strange  notions. 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


CHAPTER    I. 

|HEN,  on  returning  home  one  evening,  after  a 
pipe  party  at  my  friend  Jephson's,  I  informed 
my  wife  that  I  was  going  to  write  a  novel,  she 
expressed  herself  as  pleased  with  the  idea. 
She  said  she  had  often  wondered  I  had  never  thought  of 
doing  so  before.  "  Look,"  she  added,  "  how  silly  all  the 
novels  are  nowadays,  I'm  sure  you  could  write  one." 
(Ethelbertha  intended  to  be  complimentary,  I  am  con- 
vinced ;  but  there  is  a  looseness  about  her  mode  of  ex- 
pression which,  at  times,  renders  her  meaning  obscure.) 
When,  however,  I  told  her  that  my  friend  Jephson 
was  going  to  collaborate  with  me,  she  remarked,  "  Oh!  " 
in  a  doubtful  tone  ;  and  when  I  further  went  on  to  ex- 
plain to  her  that  Selkirk  Brown  and  Derrick  MacShaugh- 
nassy  were  going  to  assist,  she  replied,  "Oh!"  in  a 
tone  which  contained  no  trace  of  doubtfulness  whatever, 
and  from  which  it  was  clear  that  her  interest  in  the 
matter  as  a  practical  scheme  had  entirely  evaporated. 

I  fancy  that  the  fact  of  my  three  collaborators  being 
all  bachelors  diminished  somewhat  our  chances  of  suc- 
cess, in  Ethelbertha's  mind.  Against  bachelors,  as  a 
class,  she  entertains  a  strong  prejudice.  A  man's  not 
having  sense  enough  to  want  to  marry,  or,  having  that, 

7 


8  NOVEL  NOTES. 

not  enough  wit  to  do  it,  argues  to  her  thinking  either 
weakness  of  intellect  or  natural  depravity,  the  former 
rendering  its  victim  unable,  and  the  latter  unfit,  ever  to 
become  a  really  useful  novelist. 

I  tried  to  make  her  understand  the  peculiar  advan- 
tages our  plan  possessed. 

"  You  see,"  I  explained,  "  in  the  usual  commonplace 
novel  we  only  get,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  person's  ideas. 
Now  in  this  novel,  there  will  be  four  clever  men  all 
working  together.  The  public  will  thus  be  enabled  to 
obtain  the  thoughts  and  opinions  of  the  whole  four  of 
us,  at  the  price  usually  asked  for  merely  one  author's 
views.  If  the  British  reader  knows  his  own  business,  he 
will  order  this  book  early,  to  avoid  disappointment. 
Such  an  opportunity  may  not  occur  again  for  years." 

Ethelbertha  agreed  that  this  was  probable. 

"  Besides,"  I  continued,  my  enthusiasm  waxing 
stronger  the  more  I  reflected  upon  the  matter,  "  this 
work  is  going  to  be  a  genuine  bargain  in  another  way 
also.  We  are  not  going  to  put  our  mere  every  day  ideas 
into  it.  We  are  going  to  crowd  into  this  one  novel  all 
the  wit  and  wisdom  that  the  whole  four  of  us  possess,  if 
the  book  will  hold  it.  We  shall  not  write  another  novel 
after  this  one.  Indeed,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  ;  we 
shall  have  nothing  more  to  write.  This  work  will  par- 
take of  the  nature  of  an  intellectual  clearance  sale.  We 
are  going  to  put  into  this  novel  simply  all  we  know." 

Ethelbertha  shut  her  lips,  and  said  something  inside  ; 
and  then  remarked  aloud  that  she  supposed  it  would  be 
a  one  volume  affair. 

I  felt  hurt  at  the  implied  sneer.  I  pointed  out  to  her 
that  there  already  existed  a  numerous  body  of  specially 
trained  men  employed  to  do  nothing  else  but  make  dis- 
agreeable observations  upon  authors  and  their  works — a 


NOVEL  NOTES.  9 

duty  that,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  they  seemed  capable 
of  performing  without  any  amateur  assistance  whatever. 
And  I  hinted  that  by  his  own  fireside  a  literary  man 
looked  to  breathe  a  more  sympathetic  atmosphere. 

Ethelbertha  replied  that  of  course  I  knew  what  she 
meant.  She  said  that  she  was  not  thinking  of  me,  and 
that  Jephson  was,  no  doubt,  sensible  enough  (Jephson 
is  engaged),  but  she  did  not  see  the  object  of  bringing 
half  the  parish  into  it.  (Nobody  suggested  bringing 
"  half  the  parish  "  into  it.  Ethelbertha  will  talk  so 
wildly.)  To  suppose  that  Brown  and  MacShaughnassy 
could  be  of  any  use  whatever,  she  considered  absurd. 
What  could  a  couple  of  raw  bachelors  know  about  life 
and  human  nature  ?  As  regarded  MacShaughnassy,  in 
particular,  she  was  of  opinion  that  if  we  only  wanted  out 
of  him  all  that  he  knew,  and  could  keep  him  to  the  sub- 
ject, we  ought  to  be  able  to  get  that  into  about  a  page. 

My  wife's  present  estimate  of  MacShaughnassy's 
knowledge  is  the  result  of  reaction.  The  first  time  she 
ever  saw  him,  she  and  he  got  on  wonderfully  well  to- 
gether, and  when  I  returned  to  the  drawing  room,  after 
seeing  him  down  to  the  gate,  her  first  words  were, 
"  What  a  wonderful  man  that  Mr.  ^acShaughnassy  is  ! 
He  seems  to  know  so  much  about  everything." 

That  describes  MacShaughnassy  exactly.  He  does 
seem  to  know  a  tremendous  lot.  He  is  possessed  of 
more  information  than  any  man  I  ever  came  across. 
Occasionally,  it  is  correct  information  ;  but,  speaking 
broadly,  it  is  remarkable  for  its  marvelous  unreliability. 
Where  he  gets  it  from  is  a  secret  that  nobody  has  ever 
yet  been  able  to  fathom. 

This  would  not  matter  so  much  if  he  would  only 
keep  it  to  himself,  or  put  it  into  an  encyclopedia  or  a 
newspaper  where  nobody  would  take  any  notice  of  it, 


10  NOVEL  NOTES. 

and  it  would  do  no  harm.  But  he  will  go  about  impart- 
ing it. 

He  used  to  impart  a  good  deal  of  it  to  Ethelbertha  at 
one  time,  and  she  in  those  days  used  to  sit  and  listen  to 
it,  and  when  he  had  finished  she  would  ask  for  more. 

Ethelbertha  was  very  young  when  we  started  house- 
keeping. (Our  first  butcher  very  nearly  lost  her  custom, 


"BUT   HE   WILL   GO   ABOUT   IMPARTING   IT." 

I  remember,  once  and  forever,  by  calling  her  "Missie," 
and  giving  her  a  message  to  take  back  to  her  mother. 
She  arrived  home  in  tears.  She  said  that  perhaps  she 
wasn't  fit  to  be  anybody's  wife,  but  she  did  not  see  why 
she  should  be  told  so  by  the  tradespeople.)  She  was 
naturally  somewhat  inexperienced  in  domestic  affairs, 
and,  feeling  this  keenly,  was  grateful  to  anyone  who 
would  give  her  any  useful  hints  and  advice.  When 
MacShaughnassy  came  along,  he  seemed,  in  her  eyes, 
a  sort  of  glorified  Mrs.  Beeton.  He  knew  everything 


NOVEL   NOTES.  " 

wanted  to  be  known  inside  a  house  from  the  scientific 
method  of  peeling  a  potato  to  the  cure  of  spasms  in 
cats,  and  Ethelbertha  would  sit  at  his  feet,  figuratively 
speaking,  and  gain  enough  information  in  one  evening 
to  make  the  house  unlivable  in  for  a  month. 

He  told  her  how  fires  ought  to  be  laid.  He  said  that 
the  way  fires  were  usually  laid  in  this  country  was  con- 
trary to  all  the  laws  of  nature,  and  he  showed  her  how 
the  thing  was  done  in  Grim  Tartary,  or  some  such  place 
where  the  science  of  laying  fires  is  alone  properly  under- 
stood. He  proved  to  her  that  an  immense  saving  in 
time  and  labor,  to  say  nothing  of  coals,  could  be  effected 
by  the  adoption  of  the  Crim  Tartary  system;  and  he 
taught  it  to  her  then  and  there,  and  she  went  straight 
downstairs  and  explained  it  to  the  girl. 

Amenda,  our  then  "  general,"  was  an  extremely  stolid 
young  person,  and,  in  some  respects,  a  model  servant. 
She  never  argued.  She  never  seemed  to  have  any 
notions  of  her  own  whatever.  She  accepted  our  ideas 
without  comment,  and  carried  them  out  with  such  pe- 
dantic precision  and  such  evident  absence  of  all  feeling 
of  responsibility  concerning  the  result  as  to  surround 
our  home  legislation  with  quite  a  military  atmosphere. 

On  the  present  occasion  she  stood  quietly  by  while  the 
MacShaughnassy  method  of  fire-laying  was  expounded 
to  her.  When  Ethelbertha  had  finished  she  simply  said: 

"  You  want  me  to  lay  the  fires  like  that  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Amenda,  we'll  always  have  the  fires  laid  like 
that  in  future,  if  you  please." 

"  All  right,  mum,"  replied  Amenda,  with  perfect  un- 
concern, and  th.ere  the  matter  ended  for  that  evening. 

On  coming  downstairs  the  next  morning  we  found 
the  breakfast  table  spread  very  nicely,  but  there  was  no 
breakfast.  We  waited.  Ten  minutes  went  by — a  quar- 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


ter  of  an  hour— twenty  minutes.  Then  Ethelbertha 
rang  the  bell.  In  response  Amenda  presented  herself, 
calm  and  respectful. 

11  Do  you  know  that  the  proper 
time  for  breakfast  is  half-past 
eight,  Amenda  ?  " 

"  Yes'm." 


THERE    WAS    NO    BREAKFAST. 


"  And  do  you  know  that  it's  now 
nearly  nine  ? " 

"  Yes'm." 

"  Well,  isn't  breakfast  ready  ?  " 

"  No,  mum." 

"  Will  it  ever  be  ready  ?  " 

"Well,  mum,"  replied  Amenda,  in  a  tone  of  genial 
frankness,  "  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  don't  think  it  ever 
will." 

"  What's  the  reason  ?     Won't  the  fire  light  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  it  lights  all  right." 

"  Well,  then,  why  can't  you  cook  the  breakfast  ?  " 

"  Because  before  you  can  turn  yourself  round  it  goes 
out  again." 

Amenda  never  volunteered  statements.  She  answered 
the  question  put  to  her  and  then  stopped  dead.  I  called 
downstairs  to  her  on  one  occasion,  before  I  understood 
her  peculiarities,  to  ask  her  if  she  knew  the  time.  She 


NOVEL   NOTES.  13 

replied,  "  Yes,  sir,"  and  disappeared  into  the  back 
kitchen.  At  the  end  of  thirty  seconds  or  so,  I  called 
down  again.  "  I  asked  you,  Amenda,"  I  said  reproach- 
fully, "  to  tell  me  the  time  about  ten  minutes  ago." 

"  Oh,  did  you  ? "  she  called  back  presently.  "  I  beg 
your  pardon.  I  thought  you  asked  me  if  I  knew  it — it's 
half-past  four." 

Ethelbertha  inquired — to  return  to  our  fire — if  she  had 
tried  lighting  it  again. 

"  Oh,  yes,  mum,"  answered  the  girl.  "  I've  tried  four 
times."  Then  she  added  cheerfully,  "  I'll  try  again  if 
you  like,  mum." 

Amenda  was  the  most  willing  servant  we  ever  paid 
wages  to. 

Ethelbertha  said  she  would  step  down  and  light 
the  fire  herself,  and  told  Amenda  to  follow  her  and 
watch  how  she  did  it.  I  felt  interested  in  the  experi- 
ment, and  followed  also.  Ethelbertha  tucked  up  her 
frock  and  set  to  work.  Amenda  and  I  stood  round  and 
looked  on. 

At  the  end  of  half  an  hour  Ethelbertha  retired  from 
the  contest,  hot  and  dirty,  and  a  little  irritable.  The 
fireplace  retained  the  same  cold,  cynical  expression  with 
which  it  had  greeted  our  entrance. 

Then  I  tried.  I  honestly  tried  my  best.  I  was  eager 
and  anxious  to  succeed.  For  one  reason,  I  wanted  my 
breakfast.  For  another,  I  wanted  to  be  able  to  say  that 
I  had  done  this  thing.  It  seemed  to  me  that  for  any 
human  being  to  light  a  fire,  laid  as  that  fire  was  laid, 
would  be  a  feat  to  be  proud  of.  To  light  a  fire  even 
under  ordinary  circumstances  is  not  too  easy  a  task — to 
do  so,  handicapped  by  MacShaughnassy's  rules,  would, 
I  felt,  be  an  achievement  pleasant  to  look  back  upon  in 
one's  old  age.  My  idea,  had  I  succeeded,  would  have 


14  NOVEL   NOTES. 

been  to  go  round  the  neighborhood  and  brag  about  it. 
There  were  married  friends  of  ours  living  near  us — ex- 
perienced men  who  understand  all  about  babies  and 
greenhouses  and  drains  and  such  like  things — who,  I 
knew,  thought  simply  nothing  of  me  as  a  family  man. 
Here  was  a  chance  for  my  showing  these  people  what  I 
could  do  in  a  home.  I  pictured  myself  going  down  into 
their  kitchens,  raking  out  their  fires,  relaying  them  as 
this  fire  was  laid,  and  then  telling  them,  as  I  stood  point- 
ing proudly  to  the  grate,  that  I  had  lighted  and  made  to 
burn  a  fire  laid  in  precisely  similar  manner.  They  would 
not  have  believed  me,  but  I  should  have  had  the  con- 
sciousness myself  that  I  was  speaking  the  truth,  and  that 
is  always  a  sensation  worth  enjoying,  when  you  can 
afford  it. 

However,  I  did  not  succeed,  and  mp  ambition  to 
become  a  useful  husband  was  nipped  in  its  bud. 

I  lit  various  other  things,  including  the  kitchen  carpet 
and  the  cat,  who  would  come  sniffing  round,  but  the 
materials  within  the  stove  appeared  to  be  fireproof. 

Ethelbertha  and  I  sat  down,  one  each  side  of  our 
cheerless  hearth,  and  looked  at  one  another,  and  thought 
of  MacShaughnassy,  until  Amenda  chimed  in  on  our 
despair  with  one  of  those  practical  suggestions  of  hers 
that  she  occasionally  threw  out  for  us  to  accept  or  not 
as  we  chose. 

"  Maybe,"  said  she,  "  I'd  better  light  it  in  the  old 
way  just  for  to-day." 

"  Do,  Amenda,"  said  Ethelbertha,  rising.  And  then 
she  added,  "  I  think  we'll  always  have  them  lighted  in 
the  old  way,  Amenda,  if  you  please." 

Another  time  he  showed  us  how  to  make  coffee— ac- 
cording to  the  Arabian  method.  Arabia  must  be  a  very 
untidy  country  if  they  make  coffee  often  over  there.  He 


NOVEL   NOTES.  15 

dirtied  two  saucepans,  three  jugs,  one  tablecloth,  one  nut- 
meg-grater,   one    hearthrug,    three   cups,  and    himself. 
This  made  coffee  for  two— what  would  have  been  neces- 
sary in  the  case  of  a 
party,  one  dares    not 
think. 

That  we  did  not 
like  the  coffee  when 
made  MacShaugh- 
nassy  attributed  to 
our  debased  taste — 
the  result  of  long  in- 
diligence  in  an  in- 
ferior article.  He 
drank  both  cups  him- 
self, and  afterward 
went  home  in  a 
cab. 

He  had  an  aunt 
in  those  days,  I  remember, 
a  mysterious  old  lady,  who 
lived  in  some  secluded  retreat  {tv^3*^^' 
from  which  she  wrought  in- 
calculable mischief  upon  Mac- 
Shaughnassy's  friends.  What  he  did  not  know — the 
one  or  two  things  that  he  was  not  an  authority  upon — 
this  aunt  of  his  knew.  "  No,"  he  would  say  with  engag- 
ing candor — "  no,  that  is  a  thing  I  cannot  advise  you 
about  myself.  But,"  he  would  add,  "  I'll  tell  you  what 
I'll  do.  I'll  write  to  my  aunt  and  ask  her."  And  a  day 
or  two  afterward  he  would  call  again,  bringing  his  aunt's 
advice  with  him  ;  and,  if  you  were  young  and  inexperi- 
enced, or  a  natural  born  imbecile,  you  might  possibly 
follow  it. 


16  NOVEL   NOTES. 

She  sent  us  a  recipe  on  one  occasion,  through  Mac- 
Shaughnassy,  for  the  extermination  of  black  beetles.  We 
occupied  a  very  picturesque  old  house  ;  but,  like  most 
picturesque  old  houses,  its  advantages  were  chiefly  exter- 
nal. There  were  many  holes  and  cracks  and  crevices 
within  its  cracking  framework.  Frogs,  who  had  lost 
their  way  and  taken  the  wrong  turning,  would  suddenly 
discover  themselves  in  the  middle  of  our  dining  room, 
apparently  quite  as  much  to  their  own  surprise  and 
annoyance  as  to  ours.  A  numerous  company  of  rats  and 
mice,  remarkable  as  a  body  for  their  fondness  for  phy- 
sical exercise,  had  fitted  the  place  up  as  a  gymnasium 
for  themselves,  and  our  kitchen,  after  ten  o'clock,  was 
turned  into  a  black  beetles'  club.  They  came  up  through 
the  floor  and  out  through  the  walls,  and  gamboled  there 
in  their  light-hearted,  reckless  way  till  daylight. 

The  rats  and  mice  Amenda  did  not  object  to.  She 
said  she  liked  to  watch  them.  But  against  the  black 
beetles  she  was  prejudiced.  Therefore  when  my  wife 
informed  her  that  MacShaughnassy's  aunt  had  given  us 
an  infallible  recipe  for  their  annihilation,  she  rejoiced. 

We  purchased  the  materials,  manufactured  the  mix- 
ture, and  put  it  about.  The  beetles  came  and  ate  it. 
They  seemed  to  like  it.  They  finished  it  all  up,  and  were 
evidently  vexed  that  there  was  not  more.  But  they  did 
not  die. 

We  told  these  facts  to  MacShaughnassy.  He  smiled 
a  very  grim  smile,  and  said  in  a  low  tone,  full  of  mean- 
ing, "  Let  them  eat  !  " 

It  appeared  that  this  was  one  of  those  slow,  insidious 
poisons.  It  did  not  kill  the  beetle  off  immediately,  but 
it  undermined  his  constitution.  Day  by  day  he  would 
sink  and  droop  without  being  able  to  tell  what  was  the 
matter  with  himself,  until  one  morning  we  should  enter 


NOVEL   NOTES.  17 

the  kitchen  to  find  him  lying  cold  and  very  still  while 
the  gray  dawn  came  creeping  in  through  the  shutter's 
cracks. 

So  we  made  more  stuff  and  laid  it  round  each  night, 
and  the  black  beetles  from  all  about  the  parish  swarmed 
to  it.  Each  night  they  came  in  greater  quantities. 
They  fetched  up  all  their  friends  and  relations.  Strange 
beetles — beetles  from  other  families,  with  no  claim  on  us 
whatever — got  to  hear  about  the  thing,  and  came  in 
hordes  and  tried  to  rob  our  beetles  of  it.  By  the  end  of 
a  week  we  had  lured  into  our  kitchen  every  beetle  that 
wasn't  lame  for  miles  around. 

MacShaughnassy  said  it  was  a  good  thing.  We 
should  clear  the  suburb  at  one  swoop.  The  beetles  had 
now  been  eating  this  poison  steadily  for  ten  days,  and 
he  said  that  the  end  could  not  be  far  off.  I  was  glad  to 
hear  it,  because  I  was  beginning  to  find  this  unlimited 
hospitality  expensive.  It  was  a  dear  poison  that  we 
were  giving  them,  and  they  were  hearty  eaters. 

We  went  downstairs  to  see  how  they  were  getting  on. 
MacShaughnassy  thought  they  seemed  queer,  and  was  of 
opinion  that  they  were  rapidly  breaking  up.  Speaking 
for  myself,  I  can  only  say  that  a  healthier  looking  lot  of 
beetles  I  never  wish  to  see. 

One,  it  is  true,  did  die  that  very  evening.  He  was 
detected  in  the  act  of  trying  to  make  off  with  an  unfairly 
large  portion  of  the  poison,  and  three  or  four  of  the 
others  set  upon  htm  savagely  and  killed  him. 

But  he  was  the  only  one,  so  far  as  I  could  ever  discover, 
to  whom  MacShaughn assy's  recipe  proved  fatal.  As  for 
the  others,  they  grew  fat  and  sleek  upon  it.  Some  of 
them,  indeed,  began  to  acquire  quite  a  figure.  We  les- 
sened their  numbers  eventually  by  the  help  of  some 
common  oil-shop  stuff.  But  such  vast  numbers,  at- 


1 8  NOVEL   NOTES. 

tracted  by  MacShaughnassy's  poison,  had  settled  in  the 
house,  that  to  ever  finally  exterminate  them  now  was 
hopeless. 

I  have  not  heard  of  MacShaughnassy's  aunt  lately. 
Possibly  one  of  MacShaughnassy's  bosom  friends  has 
found  out  her  address  and  has  gone  down  and  murdered 
her.  If  so,  I  should  like  to  thank  him. 

I  tried  a  little  while  ago  to  cure  MacShaughnassy  of 
his  fatal  passion  for  advice  giving,  by  repeating  to  him 
a  very  sad  story  that  was  told  to  me  by  a  gentleman 
I  met  in  an  American  railway  car.  1  was  traveling  from 
Buffalo,  and,  during  the  day,  it  suddenly  occurred  to  me 
that  I  might  make  the  journey  more  interesting  by  leav- 
ing the  cars  at  Albany  and  completing  the  distance  by 
water.  But  I  did  not  know  how  the  boats  ran,  and 
I  had  no  guide-book  with  me.  I  glanced  about  for 
someone  to  question.  A  mild-looking  elderly  gentle- 
man sat  by  the  next  window  reading  a  book,  the  cover 
of  which  was  familiar  to  me.  I  deemed  him  to  be  intel- 
ligent, and  approached  him. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  for  interrupting  you,"  I  said, 
sitting  down  opposite  to  him,  "  but  could  you  give  me 
any  information  about  the  boats  between  Albany  and 
New  York  ?  " 

"  Well,"  he  answered,  looking  up  with  a  pleasant  smile, 
"  there  are  three  lines  of  boats  altogether.  There  is  the 
Heggarty  line,  but  they  only  go  as  far  as  Catskill.  Then 
there  are  the  Poughkeepsie  boats,  which  go  every  other 
day.  Or  there  is  what  we  call  the  canal  boat." 

"  Oh,"  I  said.  "  Well  now.  which  would  you  advise 
me  to " 

He  jumped  to  his  feet  with  a  cry,  and  stood  glaring 
down  at  me  with  a  gleam  in  his  eyes  which  was  positively 
murderous. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  19 

"You  villain  !  "  he  hissed  in  low  lones  of  concentrated 
fury,  "  so  that's  your  game,  is  it  ?  I'll  give  you  some- 
thing that  you'll  want  advice  about,"  and  he  whipped  out 
a  six-chambered  revolver. 

I  felt  hurt.  I  also  felt  that  if  the  interview  were  pro- 
longed I  might  feel  even  more  hurt.  So  I  left  him  with- 
out a  word,  and  drifted  over  to  the  other  end  of  the  car, 
where  I  took  up  a  position  between  a  stout  lady  and  the 
door, 

I  was  still  musing  upon  the  incident,  when,  looking  up, 
I  observed  my  elderly  friend  making  toward  me.  I  rose 
and  laid  my  hand  upon  the  door-knob.  He  should  not 
find  me  unprepared.  He  smiled  reassuringly,  however, 
and  held  out  his  hand. 

"  I've  been  thinking,"  he  said,  "  that  maybe  I  was  a 
little  rude  just  now.  I  should  like,  if  you  will  let  me,  to 
explain.  I  think,  when  you  have  heard  my  story,  you 
will  understand,  and  forgive  me." 

There  was  that  about  him  that  made  me  trust  him.  We 
found  a  quiet  corner  in  the  smoking-car.  I  had  a  "  whisky 
sour,"  and  he  prescribed  for  himself  a  strange  thing  of  his 
own  invention.  Then  we  Ijghted  our  cigars,  and  he  talked. 

"  Thirty  years  ago,"  said  he,  "  I  was  a  young  man  with 
a  healthy  belief  in  myself,  and  a  desire  to  do  good  to 
others.  I  did  not  imagine  myself  a  genius.  I  did  not 
even  consider  myself  exceptionally  brilliant  or  talented. 
But  it  did  seem  to  me,  and  the  more  I  noted  the  doings 
of  my  fellow-men  and  women,  the  more  assured  did  I 
become  of  it  that  I  possessed  plain,  practical  common 
sense  to  an  unusual  and  remarkable  degree.  Conscious 
of  this,  I  wrote  a  little  book  which  I  entitled  How  to  be 
Happy,  Wealthy,  and  Wise,  and  published  it  at  my  own 
expense.  I  did  not  seek  for  profit.  I  merely  wished  to 
be  useful. 


20  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  The  book  did  not  make  the  stir  that  I  had  antici- 
pated. Some  two  or  three  hundred  copies  went  off,  and 
then  the  sale  practically  ceased. 

"I  confess  that  at  first  I  was  disappointed.  But  after 
a  while,  I  reflected  that,  if  people  would  not  take  my  ad- 


OPEN,  INTELLIGENT 


COUNTENANCE. 

vice,  it  was  more  their  loss  than  mine,  and  I  dismissed 
the  matter  from  my  mind. 

"  One  morning,  about  a  twelvemonth  afterward,  I 
was  sitting  in  my  study,  when  the  servant  entered  to  say 
that  there  was  a  man  downstairs  who  wanted  very  much 
to  see  me. 

"I  gave  instructions  that  he  should  be  sent  up,  and  up 
accordingly  he  came. 

"  He  was  a  common  man,  but  he  had  an  open,  intelli- 


NOVEL  NOTES.  21 

gent  countenance,  and  his  manner  was  most  respectful. 
I  motioned  him  to  be  seated.  He  selected  a  chair,  and 
sat  down  on  the  extreme  edge  of  it. 

"'I  hope  you'll  pard'n  this  intrusion,  sir,'  he  began, 
speaking  deliberately,  and  twirling  his  hat  the  while  ; 
'  but  I've  come  more'n  two  hundred  miles  to  see  you,  sir.' 

"  I  expressed  myself  as  pleased,  and  he  continued  : 
'  They  tell  me,  sir,  as  you're  the  gentleman  as  wrote  that 
little  book,  How  to  be  Happy,  Wealthy,  and  Wise.'  He 
enumerated  the  three  items  slowly,  dwelling  lovingly  on 
each.  I  admitted  the  fact. 

"  '  Ah,  that's  a  wonderful  book,  sir,'  he  went  on.  '  I 
aint  one  of  them  as  has  got  brains  of  their  own — not  to 
speak  of — but  I  know  enough  to  know  them  as  has  ;  and 
when  I  read  that  little  book,  I  says  to  myself,  Josiah 
Hackett  (that's  my  name,  sir),  when  you're  in  doubt 
don't  you  get  addling  that  thick  head  o'  yours,  as  will 
only  tell  you  all  wrong  ;  you  go  to  the  gentleman  as 
wrote  that  little  book  and  ask  him  for  his  advice.  He  is 
a  kind-hearted  gentleman,  as  anyone  can  tell,  and  he'll 
give  it  you  ;  and  when  you've  got  it,  you  go  straight 
ahead,  full  steam,  and  don't  you  stop  for  nothing,  'cause 
he'll  know  what's  best  for  you.  same  as  he  knows  what's 
best  for  everybody.  That's  what  I  says,  sir  ;  and  that's 
what  I'm  here  for.' 

"  He  paused  and  wiped  his  brow  with  a  green  cotton 
handkerchief.  I  prayed  him  to  proceed. 

"  It  appeared  that  the  worthy  fellow  wanted  to  marry, 
but  could  not  make  up  his  mind  whom  he  wanted  to 
marry.  He  had  his  eye — so  he  expressed  it — upon  two 
young  women,  and  they,  he  had  reason  to  believe, 
regarded  him  in  return  with  more  than  usual  favor.  His 
difficulty  was  to  decide  which  of  the  two — both  of  them 
excellent  and  deserving  young  persons— would  make  him 


22  NOVEL  NOTES. 

the  best  wife.  The  one,  Juliana,  the  only  daughter  of  a 
retired  sea-captain,  he  described  as  a  winsome  lassie,  with 
fair  hair  and  blue  eyes.  The  other,  whose  name  was 
Hannah,  was  an  older  and  altogether  more  womanly  girl. 
She  was  the  eldest  of  a  large  family.  Her  father,  he 
said,  was  a  God-fearing  man,  and  was  doing  well  in  the 
timber  trade.  He  asked  me  which  of  them  I  should 
advise  him  to  marry. 

"  I  was  flattered.  What  man  in  my  position  would 
not  have  been  ?  This  Josiah  Hackett  had  come  from 
afar  to  hear  my  wisdom.  He  was  willing — nay,  anxious — 
to  intrust  his  whole  life's  happiness  to  my  discretion. 
That  he  was  wise  in  doing  so,  I  entertained  no  doubt. 
The  choice  of  a  wife  I  had  always  held  to  be  a  matter 
needing  a  calm,  unbiased  judgment,  such  as  no  lover 
could  possibly  bring  to  bear  upon  the  subject.  In  such 
a  case,  I  should  not  have  hesitated  to  offer  advice  to  the 
wisest  of  men.  To  this  poor,  simple-minded  fellow,  I 
felt  it  would  be  cruel  to  refuse  it. 

"  He  handed  me  photographs  of  both  the  young  per- 
sons under  consideration.  I  jotted  down  on  the  back  of 
each  such  particulars  as  I  deemed  would  assist  me  in 
estimating  their  respective  fitness  for  the  vacancy  in 
question,  and  promised  to  carefully  consider  the  problem, 
and  write  him  in  a  day  or  two. 

"  His  gratitude  was  touching.  '  Don't  you  trouble  to 
write  no  letters,  sir,'  he  said  ;  '  you  just  stick  down  Julia 
or  Hannah  on  a  bit  of  paper,  and  put  it  in  an  envelope. 
I  shall  know  what  it  means,  and  that's  the  one  as  I  shall 
marry.' 

"  Then  he  gripped  me  by  the  hand,  and  left  me. 

"  I  gave  a  good  deal  of  thought  to  the  selection  of 
Josiah's  wife.  I  wanted  him  to  be  happy. 

"  Juliana  was  certainly  very    pretty.      There    was   a 


NOVEL   NOTES.  23 

larking  playfulness  about  the  corners  of  Juliana's  mouth 
which  conjured  up  the  sound  of  rippling  laughter  and 
the  vision  of  delicious  childish  poutings.  Had  I  acted 
on  impulse,  I  should  have  clasped  Julia  in  Josiah's 
arms. 

"  But,  I  reflected,  more  sterling  qualities  than  mere 
playfulness  and  prettiness  are  needed  for  a  wife. 
Hannah,  though  not  so  charming  as  Julia,  clearly  pos- 
sessed both  energy  and  sense — qualities  highly  necessary 
to  a  poor  man's  wife.  Hannah's  father  was  a  pious  man, 
and  was  'doing  well' — a  thrifty,  saving  man,  no  doubt. 
He  would  have  instilled  into  her  lessons  of  economy  and 
virtue  ;  and,  later  on,  she  might  possibly  come  in  for  a 
little  something.  She  was  the  eldest  of  a  large  family. 
She  was  sure  to  have  had  to  help  her  mother  a  good 
deal.  She  would  be  experienced  in  household  matters, 
and  would  understand  the  bringing  up  of  children. 

"  Julia's  father,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  retired  sea- 
captain.  Seafaring  folk  are  generally  loose  sort  of  fish. 
He  had  probably  been  in  the  habit  of  going  about  the 
house,  using  language  and  expressing  views,  the  hearing 
of  which  could  not  but  have  exercised  an  injurious  effect 
upon  the  formation  of  a  growing  girl's  character. 
Juliana  was  his  only  child.  Only  children  generally 
make  bad  men  and  women.  They  are  allowed  to  have 
their  own  way  too  much.  The  pretty  daughter  of  a 
retired  sea-captain  would  be  certain  to  be  spoilt.  I  could 
picture  the  choleric  old  fellow,  pinching  her  soft  cheek, 
while  she  coaxed  him  into  letting  her  have  this  and  do 
that  which  she  ought  not  to  have  and  do — petting  her 
and  humoring  her  every  whim,  and  so  ruining  her  for  all 
useful  purposes  whatever. 

"  Josiah,  I  had  also  to  remember,  was  a  man  evidently 
of  weak  character.  He  would  need  management.  Now, 


24  NOVEL  NOTES. 

there  was  something  about  Hannah's  eye  that  eminently 
suggested  management. 

"  At  the  end  of  two  days  my  mind  was  made  up.  I 
wrote  '  Hannah  '  on  a  slip  of  paper,  and  posted  it. 

"  A  fortnight  afterward  I  received  a  letter  from 
Josiah.  He  thanked  me  for  my  advice,  but  added,  inci- 
dentally, that  he  wished  I  could  have  made  it  '  Julia.' 
However,  he  said,  he  felt  sure  I  knew  best,  and  by  the 
time  I  received  the  letter  he  and  Hannah  would  be 
one. 

"  That  letter  worried  me.  I  began  to  wonder  if,  after 
all,  I  had  chosen  the  right  girl.  Suppose  Hannah  was 
not  all  I  thought  her  !  What  a  terrible  thing  it  would  be 
for  Josiah  !  What  data,  sufficient  to  reason  upon,  had  I 
possessed  ?  How  did  I  know  that  Hannah  was  not  a 
lazy,  ill-tempered  girl,  a  continual  thorn  in  the  side  of 
her  poor  overworked  mother,  and  a  perpetual  blister  to 
her  younger  brothers  and  sisters  ?  How  did  I  know  she 
had  been  well  brought  up  ?  Her  father  might  be  a 
precious  old  fraud  :  most  seemingly  pious  men  are.  She 
may  have  learned  from  htm  only  hypocrisy. 

"Then  also,  how  did  I  know  that  Juliana's  merry  child- 
ishness would  not  ripen  into  sweet,  cheerful  womanliness  ? 
Her  father,  for  all  I  knew  to  the  contrary,  might  be  the 
model  of  what  a  retired  sea-captain  should  be  ;  with 
possibly  a  snug  little  sum  safely  invested  somewhere. 
And  Juliana  was  his  only  child.  What  reason  had  I  for 
rejecting  this  fair  young  creature's  love  for  Josiah  ? 

"I  took  her  photo  from  my  desk.  I  seemed  to  detect  a 
reproachful  look  in  the  big  eyes.  I  saw  before  me  the 
scene  in  the  little  far-away  home  when  the  first  tidings  of 
Josiah's  marriage  fell  like  a  cruel  stone  into  the  hitherto 
placid  waters  of  her  life.  I  saw  her  kneeling  by  her 
father's  chair  while  the  white-haired,  bronzed  old  man 


NOVEL   NOTES.  25 

gently  stroked  the  golden  head  shaking  with  silent  sobs 
against  his  breast.  My  remorse  was  almost  more  than  I 
could  bear. 

"  I  put  her  aside  and  took  up  Hannah — my  chosen 
one.  She  seemed  to  be  regarding  me  with  a  smile  of 
heartless  triumph.  There  began  to  take  possession  of 
me  a  feeling  of  positive  dislike  to  Hannah. 

"  I  fought  against  the  feeling.  I  told  myself  it  was 
prejudice.  But  the  more  I  reasoned  against  it  the 
stronger  it  became.  I  could  tell  that,  as  the  days  went 
by,  it  would  grow  from  dislike  to  loathing,  from  loathing 
to  hate.  And  this  was  the  woman  I  had  deliberately 
selected  as  a  life  companion  for  Josiah  ! 

"  For  weeks  I  knew  no  piece  of  mind.  Every  letter 
that  arrived  I  dreaded  to  open,  fearing  it  might  be  from 
Josiah.  At  every  knock  I  started  up  and  looked  about 
for  a  hiding  place.  Every  time  I  came  across  the  head- 
ing '  Domestic  Tragedy,'  in  the  newspapers,  I  broke  into 
a  cold  perspiration.  I  expected  to  read  that  Josiah  and 
Hannah  had  murdered  each  other  and  died  cursing  me. 

"  As  the  time  went  by,  however,  and  I  heard  nothing, 
my  fears  began  to  assuage,  and  my  belief  in  my  own 
intuitive  good  judgment  to  return.  Maybe  I  had  done 
a  good  thing  for  Josiah  and  Hannah,  and  they  were 
blessing  me.  Three  years  passed  peacefully  away,  and 
I  was  beginning  to  forget  the  existence  of  the  Hacketts. 

"  Then  he  came  again.  I  returned  home  from  busi- 
ness one  evening  to  find  him  waiting  for  me  in  the  hall. 
The  moment  I  saw  him  I  knew  that  my  worst  fears  had 
fallen  short  of  the  truth.  I  motioned  him  to  follow  me 
to  my  study.  He  did  so,  and  seated  himself  in  the 
identical  chair  on  which  he  had  sat  three  years  ago.  The 
change  in  him  was  remarkable ;  he  looked  old  and  care- 
worn. His  manner  was  that  of  resigned  hopelessness. 


26  NOVEL   NOTES. 

"  We  both  remained  for  a  while  without  speaking,  he 
twirling  his  hat  as  at  our  first  interview,  I  making  a 
show  of  arranging  papers  on  my  desk.  At  length,  feel- 
ing that  anything  would  be  more  bearable  than  this 
silence,  I  turned  to  him. 

" '  Things  have  not  been  going  well  with  you,  I'm 
afraid,  Josiah  ?'  I  said. 

'"No,  sir,'  he  replied  quietly;  'I  can't  say  as  they 
have,  altogether.  That  Hannah  of  yours  has  turned  out 
a  bit  of  a  teaser.' 

"There  was  no  touch  of  reproach  in  his  tones.  He 
simply  stated  a  melancholy  fact. 

" '  But  she  is  a  good  wife  to  you  in  other  ways,'  I 
urged.  '  She  has  her  faults,  of  course.  We  all  have. 
But  she  is  energetic.  Come  now,  you  will  admit  she's 
energetic.' 

"  I  owed  it  to  myself  to  find  some  good  in  Hannah,  and 
this  was  the  only  thing  I  could  think  of  at  the  moment. 

" '  Oh,  yes,  she's  that,'  he  assented.  '  A  little  too 
much  so  for  our  sized  house,  I  sometimes  think. 

"  '  You  see,'  he  went  on,  '  she's  a  bit  cornery  in  her 
temper,  Hannah  is  ;  and  then  her  mother's  a  bit  trying 
at  times.' 

" '  Her  mother  ! '  I  exclaim,  '  but  what's  she  got  to  do 
with  you  ?  ' 

"'Well,  you  see,  sir,'  he  answered,  'she's  living  with 
us  now — ever  since  the  old  man  went  off.' 

"  '  Hannah's  father  ?     He  is  dead,  then  ? ' 

" '  Well,  not  exactly,  sir,'  he  replied.  '  He  ran  off  about 
a  twelvemonth  ago  with  one  of  the  young  women  who 
used  to  teach  in  the  Sunday  school,  and  joined  the 
Mormons.  It  come  as  a  great  surprise  to  everyone.' 

"  I  groaned.  '  And  his  business,'  I  inquired — '  the 
timber  business,  who  carries  that  on  ?' 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


"'Oh,  that!'  answered  Josiah.  '  Oh,  that  had  to  be 
sold  to  pay  his  debts — leastways,  to  go  toward  'em.' 

"  I    remarked   what  a   terrible    thing   it  was  for  his 
family.      I 
supposed 
the    home 
was      bro- 
kenupandf, 
they    were 
all  scattered. 

"  '  No,  sir,'  he  replied 
simply,  'they  aint  scat- 
tered much.  They're  all 
living  with  us.' 

'"But,  there,'  he  con- 
tinued, seeing  the  look 
upon  my  face;  'of  course 
all  this  has  nothing  to  do 
with  you,  sir.  You've  got 
troubles  of  your  own,  I 
dare  say,  sir.  I  didn't 
come  here  to  worry  you 
with  mine.  That  would 
be  a  poor  return  for  all 
your  kindness  to  me.' 

"  '  What  has  become  of 
Julia  ? '  I  asked.     I  did  not  feel  I  wanted  to  question 
him  any  more  about  his  own  affairs. 

"  A  smile  broke  the  settled  melancholy  of  his  features. 
'  Ah,'  he  said,  in  a  more  cheerful  tone  than  he  had 
hitherto  employed,  '  it  does  one  good  to  think  about  her, 
it  does.  She's  married  to  a  friend  of  mine  now,  young 
Sam  Jessop.  I  slips  out  and  gives  'em  a  call  now  and 
then,  when  Hannah  aint  round.  Lord,  it's  like  getting 


28  NOVEL   NOTES. 

a  glimpse  of  heaven  to  look  into  their  little  home.  He 
often  chaffs  me  about  it,  Sam  does.  "  Well,  you  was  a 
sawny-headed  chunk,  Josiah,  you  was,"  he  often  says  to 
me.  We're  old  chums,  you  know,  sir,  Sam  and  me,  so 
he  don't  mind  joking  a  bit  like." 

"  Then  the  smile  died  away,  and  he  added  with  a  sigh, 
'  Yes,  I've  often  thought  since,  sir,  how  jolly  it  would 
have  been  if  you  could  have  seen  your  way  to  making 
it  Juliana.' 

"  I  felt  I  must  get  him  back  to  Hannah  at  any  cost. 
I  said  :  '  I  suppose  you  and  your  wife  are  still  living  in 
the  old  place  ? ' 

"  '  Yes,'  he  replied,  'if  you  can  call  it  living.  It's  a 
hard  struggle  with  so  many  of  us.' 

"  He  said  he  did  not  know  how  he  should  have  man- 
aged if  it  had  not  been  for  the  help  of  Julia's  father. 
He  said  the  captain  had  behaved  more  like  an  angel 
than  anything  else  he  knew  of. 

"  '  I  don't  say  as  he's  one  of  your  clever  sort,  you  know, 
sir,'  he  explained.  '  Not  the  man  as  one  would  go  to 
for  advice,  like  one  would  to  you,  sir  ;  but  he's  a  good 
sort  for  all  that. 

" '  And  that  reminds  me,  sir,'  he  went  on,  '  of  what 
I've  come  here  about.  You'll  think  it  very  bold  of  me 
to  ask,  sir,  but ' 

"I  interrupted  him.  'Josiah,'  I  said, '  I  admit  that  I 
am  much  to  blame  for  what  has  come  upon  you.  You 
asked  me  for  my  advice.  I  gave  it  you.  Which  of  us  was 
the  bigger  idiot,  we  will  not  discuss.  The  point  is  that 
I  did  give  it,  and  I  am  not  a  man  to  shirk  my  responsi- 
bilities. What,  in  reason,  you  ask,  and  I  can  grant, 
I  will  give  you.' 

"  He  was  overcome  with  gratitude.  '  I  knew  it,  sir,' 
he  said.  '  I  knew  you  would  not  refuse  me.  I  said  so 


NOVEL  NOTES.  29 

to  Hannah.  I  said  "I  will  go  to  that  gentleman  and 
ask  him.  I  will  go  to  him  and  ask  him  for  his  advice."  ' 

"  I  said,  '  His  what  ? ' 

"  '  His  advice,'  repeated  Josiah,  apparently  surprised 
at  my  tone,  '  on  a  little  matter  as  I  can't  quite  make  up 
my  mind  about.' 

"  I  thought  at  first  he  was  trying  to  be  sarcastic,  but 
he  wasn't.  That  man  sat  there,  -and  wrestled  with  me 
for  my  advice  as  to  whether  he  should  invest  a  thousand 
dollars  which  Julia's  father  had  offered  to  lend  him  in 
the  purchase  of  a  laundry  business  or  a  bar.  He  hadn't 
had  enough  of  it  (my  advice,  I  mean)  ;  he  wanted  it 
again,  and  he  spun  me  reasons  why  I  should  give  it  him. 
The  choice  of  a  wife  was  a  different  thing  altogether,  he 
argued.  Perhaps  he  ought  not  to  have  asked  me  for  my 
opinion  as  to  that.  But  advice  as  to  which  of  two  trades 
a  man  would  do  best  to  select,  surely  any  business  man 
could  give.  He  said  he  had  just  been  reading  again  my. 
little  book,  How  to  be  Happy,  etc.,  and  if  the  gentleman 
who  wrote  that  could  not  decide  between  the  respective 
merits  of  one  particular  laundry  and  one  particular  bar, 
both  situated  in  the  same  city,  well,  then,  all  he  had  got 
to  say  was  that  knowledge  and  \visdoin  were  clearly  of 
no  practical  use  in  this  world  whatever. 

"  Well,  it  did  seem  a  simple  thing  to  advise  a  man 
about.  Surely,  as  to  a  matter  of  this  kind,  I,  a  professed 
business  man,  must  be  able  to  form  a  sounder  judgment 
than  this  poor  pumpkin-headed  Iamb.  It  would  be 
heartless  to  refuse  to  help  him.  I  promised  to  look  into 
the  matter,  and  let  him  know  what  I  thought.  He  rose 
and  shook  me  by  the  hand.  He  said  he  would  not  try 
to  thank  me  ;  words  would  only  seem  weak.  He  dashed 
away  a  tear  and  went  out. 

"  I  brought  an  amount  of  thought  to  bear  upon  this 


30  NOVEL  NOTES. 

thousand-dollar  investment  sufficient  to  have  floated  a 
bank.  I  did  not  mean  to  make  another  Hannah  job,  if 
I  could  help  it.  1  studied  the  papers  Josiah  had  left 
with  me,  but  did  not  attempt  to  form  any  opinion  from 
them.  I  went  down  quietly  to  Josiah's  city,  aud  in- 
spected both  businesses  on  the  spot.  I  instituted  secret 
but  searching  inquiries  in  the  neighborhood.  I  disguised 

myself  as  a 
simple-minded 
young  man 
who  had  come 
into  a  little 
'  money,  and 
wormed  my- 
self into  the  confidence  of  the 
servants.  I  interviewed  half  the 
town  upon  the  pretense  that  I  was 
writing  the  commercial  history  of 
^•^"2*^  New  England,  and  should  like 
s^LiSLMv^a^*'  some  particulars  of  their  career, 
and  I  invariably  ended  my  exam- 
ination by  asking  them  which  was  their  favorite  bar, 
and  where  they  got  their  washing  done.  I  sta)?ed  a 
fortnight  in  the  town.  Most  of  my  spare  time  was 
spent  at  the  bar.  In  my  leisure  moments  I  dirtied  my 
clothes  so  that  they  might  be  washed  at  the  laundry. 
"  As  the  result  of  my  investigations  I  discovered  that, 
so  far  as  the  two  businesses  themselves  were  concerned, 
there  was  not  a  pin  to  choose  between  them.  It  became 
merely  a  question  of  which  particular  trade  would  best 
suit  the  Hacketts. 

"  I  reflected.  The  keeper  of  a  bar  was  exposed  to  much 
temptation.  A  weak-minded  man,  mingling  continually 
in  the  company  of  topers,  might  possibly  end  by  giving 


NOVEL   NOTES.  31 

way  to  drink.  Now,  Josiah  was  an  exceptionally  weak- 
minded  man.  It  had  also  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  he 
had  a  shrewish  wife,  and  that  her  whole  family  had  come 
to  live  with  him.  Clearly,  to  place  Josiah  in  a  position 
of  easy  access  to  unlimited  liquor  would  be  madness. 

"  About  a  laundry,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  some- 
thing soothing.  The  working  of  a  laundry  needed  many 
hands.  Hannah's  relatives  might  be  used  up  in  a  laun- 
dry, and  made  to  earn  their  own  living.  Hannah  might 
expend  her  energy  in  flat-ironing,  and  Josiah  might  turn 
the  mangle.  The  idea  conjured  up  quite  a  pleasant 
domestic  picture.  I  recommended  the  laundry. 

"On  the  following  Monday,  Josiah  wrote  to  say  that 
he  had  bought  the  laundry.  On  Tuesday  I  read  in  the 
Commercial  Intelligence  that  '  One  of  the  most  remarkable 
features  of  the  time  was  the  marvelous  rise  taking  place 
all  over  New  England  in  the  value  of  hotel  and  bar 
property.'  On  Thursday,  in  the  list  of  '  Failures,'  I 
came  across  no  less  than  four  laundry  proprietors  ;  and 
the  paper  added,  in  explanation,  that  the  American 
washing  industry,  owing  to  the  rapid  growth  of  Chinese 
competition,  was  practically  on  its  last  legs.  I  went  out 
and  got  drunk. 

"  My  life  became  a  curse  to  me.  All  day  long  I 
thought  of  Josiah.  All  night  I  dreamed  of  him.  Sup- 
pose that,  not  content  with  being  the  cause  of  his  domes- 
tic misery,  I  had  now  deprived  him  of  the  means  of 
earning  a  livelihood,  and  had  rendered  useless  the 
generosity  of  that  good  old  sea-captain.  I  began  to 
appear  to  myself  as  a  malignant  fiend,  ever  following 
this  simple  but  worthy  man  to  work  evil  upon  him. 

"  Time  passed  away,  however ;  I  heard  nothing  from 
or  of  him,  and  my  burden  at  last  fell  from  me. 

"  Then  at  the  end  of  about  five  years  he  came  again. 


32 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


"  He  came  behind  me  as  I  was  opening  the  door  with 
my  latch-key,  and  laid  an  unsteady  hand  upon  my  arm. 
It  was  a  dark  night,  but  a  gas  lamp  showed  me  his  face. 
I  recognized  it  in  spite  of  the  red  blotches  and  the  bleary 
film  that   hid   the   eyes.     I   caught  him  roughly  by  the 
arm,  and  hurried  him  inside  and  up  into  my  study. 
" '  Sit  down,'  I  hissed,  '  and  tell  me  the  worst  first.' 
"  He  was  about  to  select  his  favorite  chair.      I  felt 
that  if  I  saw  him  and  that  particular  chair  in  association, 
for  the  third  time,  I  should 
do    something     terrible     to 
both.     I  snatched    it    away 
from  him,  and  he  sat  down 
heavily    on    the    floor,    and 
burst  into  tears.     I  let  him 
remain    there,   and,   thickly, 
between  hic- 

coughs,   he    told 
his  tale. 

"  The  laundry 
had  gone  from 
bad  to  worse. 
A  new  railway 
had  come  to  the  town,  altering  its  whole  topog- 
raphy. The  business  and  residential  portion  had  grad- 
ually shifted  northward.  The  spot  where  the  bar — the 
particular  one  which  I  had  rejected  for  the  laundry — had 
formerly  stood  was  now  the  commercial  center  of  the 
city.  The  man  who  had  purchased  it  in  place  of  Josiah 
had  sold  out  and  made  a  fortune.  The  southern  area 
(where  the  laundry  was  situate),  it  had  been  discovered 
was  built  upon  a  swamp,  and  was  in  a  highly  unsanitary 
condition.  Careful  housewives  naturally  objected  to 
sending  their  washing  into  such  a  neighborhood. 


"  HE    SAT   DOWN    HEAVILY   ON. THE   FLOOR    AND 
BURST   INTO   TEARS." 


XOVEL   .VOTES.  33 

"  Other  troubles  had  also  come.  The  baby — Josiah's 
pet,  the  one  bright  thing  in  his  life — had  fallen  into  the 
copper  and  been  boiled.  Hannah's  mother  had  been 
crushed  in  the  mangle,  and  was  now  a  helpless  cripple, 
who  had  to  be  waited  on  day  and  night. 

"  Under  these  accumulated  misfortunes  Josiah  had 
sought  consolation  in  drink.  And  had  become  a  hope- 
less sot.  He  felt  his  degradation  keenly,  and  wept 
copiously.  He  said  he  thought  that  in  a  cheerful  place 
such  as  a  bar,  he  might  have  been  strong  and  brave  ; 
but  that  there  was  something  about  the  everlasting  smell 
of  damp  clothes,  and  suds,  that  seemed  to  sap  his  man- 
hood. 

"I  asked  him  what  the  captain  had  said  to  it  all.  He 
burst  into  fresh  tears  and  replied  that  the  captain  was  no 
more.  That,  he  added,  reminded  him  of  what  he  had 
come  about.  The  good-hearted  old  fellow  had  be- 
queathed him  five  thousand  dollars.  He  wanted  my 
advice  as  to  how  to  invest  it. 

"  My  first  impulse  was  to  kill  him  on  the  spot.  I  wish 
now  that  I  had.  I  restrained  myself,  however,  and 
offered  him  the  alternative  of  being  thrown  from  the 
window  or  of  leaving  by  the  door  without  another 
word. 

"  He  answered  that  he  was  quite  prepared  to  go  by 
the  window  if  I  would  first  tell  him  whether  to  put  his 
money  in  the  Terra  del  Fuego  Nitrate  Company,  Limited, 
or  in  the  Union  Pacific  Bank.  Life  had  no  further  in- 
terest for  him.  All  he  cared  for  was  to  feel  that  this  little 
nestegg  was  safely  laid  by  for  the  benefit  of  his  beloved 
ones  after  he  was  gone. 

"  He  pressed  me  to  tell  him  what  I  thought  of  nitrate?. 
I  declined  to  say  anything  whatever  on  the  subject.  He 
assumed  from  my  silence  that  I  did  not  think  much  of 


34  NOVEL  NOTES. 

nitrates,  and  announced  his  intention  of  investing  the 
money,  in  consequence,  in  the  Union  Pacific  Bank. 

"  I  told  him  by  all  means  to  do  so,  if  he  liked. 

"  He  paused,  and  seemed  to  be  puzzling  it  out.  Then 
he  smiled  knowingly,  and  said  he  thought  he  understood 
what  I  meant.  It  was  very  kind  to  me.  He  should  put 
every  dollar  he  possessed  in  the  Terra  del  Fuego  Nitrate 
Company. 

"  He  rose  (with  difficulty)  to  go.  I  stopped  him.  I 
knew,  as  certainly  as  I  knew  the  sun  would  rise  the  next 
morning,  that  whichever  company  I  advised  him,  or  he 
persisted  in  thinking  I  had  advised  him  (which  was  the 
same  thing),  to  invest  in,  would,  sooner  or  later,  come  to 
smash.  My  grandmother  had  all  her  little  fortune  in  the 
Terra  del  Fuego  Nitrate  Company.  I  could  not  see  her 
brought  to  penury  in  her  old  age.  As  for  Josiah,  it  could 
make  no  difference  to  him  whatever.  He  would  lose  his 
money  in  any  event.  I  advised  him  to  invest  in  Union 
Pacific  Bank  shares.  He  went  and  did  it. 

"The  Union  Pacific  Bank  held  out  for  eighteen 
months.  Then  it  began  to  totter.  The  financial  world 
stood  bewildered.  It  had  always  been  reckoned  one  of 
the  safest  banks  in  the  country.  People  asked  what 
could  be  the  cause.  I  knew  well  enough,  but  I  did  not 
tell. 

"  The  bank  made  a  gallant  fight,  but  the  hand  of  fate 
was  upon  it.  At  the  end  of  another  nine  months  the 
crash  came. 

"  (Nitrates,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  had  all  this  time 
been  going  up  by  leaps  and  bounds.  My  grandmother 
died  worth  a  million  dollars,  and  left  the  whole  of  it  to  a 
charity.  Had  she  known  how  I  had  saved  her  from  ruin, 
she  might  have  been  more  grateful.) 

"A  few  days  after  the    failure  of   the   bank,    Josiah 


NOVEL  NOTES.  35 

arrived  on  my  doorstep  ;  and,  this  time,  he  brought  his 
families  with  him.  There  were  sixteen  of  them  in  all. 

"  What  was  I  to  do  ?  I  had  brought  these  people  step 
by  step  to  the  verge  of  starvation.  I  had  laid  waste 
alike  their  happiness  and  their  prospects  in  life.  The 
least  amends  I  could  make  was  to  see  that  at  all  events 
they  did  not  want  for  the  necessities  of  existence. 

"  That  was  seventeen  years  ago.  I  am  still  seeing 
that  they  do  not  want  for  the  necessities  of  existence  ; 
and  my  conscience  is  growing  easier  by  noticing 
that  they  seem  contented  with  their  lot.  There  are 
twenty-two  of  them  now,  and  we  have  hopes  of  another 
in  the  spring. 

"  That  is  my  story,"  he  said.  "  Perhaps  you  will  now 
understand  my  sudden  emotion  when  you  asked  for  my 
advice.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do  not  give  advice  now 
on  any  subject." 

I  told  this  tale  to  MacShaughnassy.  lie  agreed  with 
me  that  it  was  instructive,  and  said  he  should  remember 
it.  He  said  he  should  remember  it  so  as  to  tell  it  to 
some  fellows  that  he  knew,  to  whom  he  thought  the 
lesson  should  prove  useful. 


CHAPTER    II. 

CAN'T  honestly  say  that  we  made  much 
progress  at  our  first  meeting.  It  was  Brown's 
fault.  He  would  begin  by  telling  us  a  story 
about  a  dog.  It  was  the  old,  old  story  of  the 
dog  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  going  every  morning 
to  a  certain  baker's  shop  with  a  penny  in  his  mouth,  in 
exchange  for  which  he  always  received  a  penny  bun. 
One  day,  the  baker,  thinking  he  would  not  know  the 
difference,  tried  to  palm  off  upon  the  poor  animal  a  ha'- 
penny bun,  whereupon  the  dog  walked  straight  outside 
and  fetched  in  a  policeman.  Brown  had  heard  this 
chestnut  for  the  first  time  that  afternoon,  and  was  full  of 
it.  It  is  always  a  mystery  to  me  where  Brown  had  been 
for  the  last  hundred  years.  He  stops  you  in  the  street 
with,  "  Oh,  I  must  tell  you  ! — such  a  capital  story  !  " 
And  he  thereupon  proceeds  to  relate  to  you,  with  much 
spirit  and  gusto,  one  of  Noah's  best-known  jokes,  or  some 
story  that  Romulus  must  have  originally  told  to  Remus. 
One  of  these  days  somebody  will  tell  him  the  history  of 
Adam  and  Eve,  and  he  will  think  he  has  got  hold  of  a 
new  plot,  and  will  work  it  up  into  a  novel. 

He  gives  forth  these  hoary  antiquities  as  personal 
reminiscences  of  his  own,  or,  at  furthest,  as  episodes  in 
the  life  of  his  second  cousin.  There  are  certain  strange 
and  moving  catastrophes  that  would  seem  either  to  have 
occurred  to,  or  to  have  been  witnessed  by,  nearly  every- 
one you  meet.  I  never  came  across  a  man  yet  who  had 
not  seen  some  other  man  jerked  off  the  top  of  an  omni- 
76 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


37 


bus  into  a  mud-cart.  Half  London  must,  at  one  time  or 
another,  have  been  jerked  off  omnibuses  into  mud-carts, 
and  have  been  fished  out  at  the  end  of  a  shovel. 

Then  there  is  the  tale  ot  the  lady  whose  husband  is 
taken  suddenly  ill  one 
night  at  an  hotel.  She 
rushes  downstairs,  and 
prepares  a  stiff  mus- 
tard plaster,  and  runs 
up  with  it  again.  In 
her  excitement,  how- 
ever, she  charges  into 
the  wrong  room,  and, 
rolling  down  the  bed- 
clothes, presses  it  l 
ingly  upon  the  wrong 
man.  I  have  heard 
that  story  so  often  that 
I  am  quite  nervous 
about  going  to  bed  in 
an  hotel  now.  Each 
man  who  has  told  it 
me  has  invariably  slept  in  the  room  next  door  to  that 
of  the  victim,  and  has  been  awakened  by  the  man's  yell 
as  the  plaster  came  down  upon  him.  That  is  how  he 
(the  storyteller)  came  to  know  all  about  it. 

Brown  wanted  us  to  believe  that  this  pre-historic  ani- 
mal he  had  been  telling  us  about  had  belonged  to  his 
brother-in-law,  and  was  hurt  when  Jephson  murmured, 
sotto  voce,  that  that  made  the  twenty-eighth  man  he  had 
met  whose  brother-in-law  had  owned  that  dog — to  say 
nothing  of  the  hundred  and  seventeen  who  had  owned  it 
themselves. 

We  tried  to  get  to  work  after  that,  but  Brown  had  un- 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


settled  us  for  the  evening.  It  is  a  wicked  thing  to  start 
dog  stories  among  a  party  of  average  sinful  men.  Let 
one  man  tell  a  dog  story,  and  every  other  man  in  the  room 
feels  he  wants  to  tell  a  bigger  one. 

There  is  a  story  going — I  cannot  vouch  for  its  truth, 
it  was  told  me  by  a  judge — of  a  man  who  lay  dying. 
The  pastor  of  the 
parish,  a  good 
and  pious  man, 


came  to  sit  with  him,  and, 
thinking  to  cheer  him  up, 

told     him     an     anecdote 

about  a  dog.     When  the 

pastor  had  finished,  the  sick  man  sat  up,  and  said,  "  I 
know  a  better  story  than  that.     I  had  a  dog  once,  a  big, 

brown,  lop-sided " 

The  effort  had  proved  too  much  for  his  strength. 
He  fell  back  upon  the  pillows,  and  the  doctor,  step- 
ping forward,  saw  that  it  was  a  question  only  of  min- 
utes. 

The  good  old  pastor  rose,  and  took  the  poor  fellow's 
hand  in  his,  and  pressed  it.  "  We  shall  meet  again,"  he 
gently  said. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  39 

The  sick  man  turned  toward  him  with  a  consoled  and 
grateful  look. 

"  I'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  that,"  he  feebly  murmured. 
"Remind  me  about  that  dog." 

Then  he  passed  peacefully  away,  with  a  sweet  smile 
upon  his  pale  lips. 

Brown,  who  had  had  his  dog  story  and  was  satisfied, 
wanted  us  to  settle  our  heroine  ;  but  the  rest  of  us  did 
not  feel  equal  to  settling  anybody  just  then.  We  were 
thinking  of  all  the  true  dog  stories  we  had  ever  heard, 
and  wondering  which  was  the  one  least  likely  to  be 
generally  disbelieved. 

MacShaughnessy,  in  particular,  was  growing  every 
moment  more  restless  and  moody.  Brown  concluded  a 
long  discourse — to  which  nobody  had  listened — by  re- 
marking with  some  pride,  "  What  more  can  you  want  ? 
The  plot  has  never  been  used  before,  and  the  characters 
are  entirely  original  !  " 

Then  MacShaughnassy  gave  way.  "  Talking  of  plots," 
he  said,  hitching  his  chair  a  little  nearer  the  table,  "  that 
puts  me  in  mind.  Did  I  ever  tell  you  about  that  dog  we 
had  when  we  lived  in  Norwood  ?  " 

"It's  not  that  one  about  the  bull-dog,  is  it  ?  "  queried 
Jephson  anxiously. 

"  Well,  it  was  a  bull-dog,"  admitted  MacShaughnassy, 
"  but  I  don't  think  I've  ever  told  it  you  before." 

We  knew  by  experience  that  to  argue  the  matter  would 
only  prolong  the  torture,  so  we  let  him  go  on. 

"  A  great  many  burglaries  had  lately  taken  place  in 
our  neighborhood,"  he  began,  "  and  the  pater  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  was  time  he  laid  down  a  dog.  He 
thought  a  bull-dog  would  be  the  best  for  his  purpose, 
and  he  purchased  the  most  savage  and  murderous-look- 
ing specimen  that  he  could  find. 


NOVEL   NOTES 


"  My  mother  was  alarmed  when,  she  saw  the  dog. 
'  Surely  you're  not  going  to  let  that  brute  loose  about 
the  house,'  she  exclaimed.  '  He'll  kill  somebody.  lean 
see  it  in  his  face.' 

'"I  want  him  to  kill  somebody,' replied   my   father; 
I  want  him  to  kill  burglars.' 

"  '  I  don't  like  to  hear  you  talk  like  that,  Thomas,'  an- 
^^          swered    the    mater  ; 

'•"C-^*^     '  i1'5  n°l  '''<e  y°u- 

We've  a  right  to 
protect  our  prop- 
erty, but  we've  no 
right  to  take  a  fellow 
creature's 


"  '  Our  fellow  hu- 
man creatures  will 
be  all  right  so  long 
as  they  don't  come 
.into  our  kitchen 
\vhen  they've  no 
business  there,'  re- 

-  THK    MOST   SAVAGK    *NO    MUUUKRO^-LOOKiNG         tOftCd  HIV          fattlCr 

somewhat  testily. 

'  I'm  going  to  fix  up  this  dog  in  the  scullery,  and  if  a 
burglar  comes  fooling  around — well,  that's  his  affair.' 

"  The  old  folks  quarreled  on  and  off  for  about  a 
month  over  this  dog.  The  dad  thought  the  matter  ab- 
surdly sentimental,  and  the  mater  thought  the  dad  un- 
necessarily vindictive.  Meanwhile  the  dog  grew  more 
ferocious  looking  every  day. 

"  One  night  my  mother  woke  my  father  up  with  : 
'  Thomas,  there's  a  burglar  downstairs,  I'm  positive.  I 
distinctly  heard  the  kitchen  door  open.' 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


"  '  Oh,  well,  the  dog's  got  him  by  now,  then,'  mur- 
mured my  father,  who  had  heard  nothing,  and  was 
sleepy. 

"  '  Thomas,'  replied  my  mother  severely,  '  I'm  not  go- 
ing to  lie  here  while  a  fellow  creature  is  being 
murdered  by  a  savage  beast.    If  you  won't  go 
down   and    save    that 
man's  life,  I  will.' 


"  '  Oh,  bother,'  said 
my  father,  preparing 
to  get  up.  '  You're 
always  fancying  you 
hear  noises.  I  believe 
that's  all  you  women 
come  to  bed  for  —  to 


IERE  S   A    Bl'RGt 


DOWNSTA.RS." 

burglars.'       Just      to 

satisfy  her,  however,  he  pulled  on  his  trousers  and  socks, 
and  went  down. 

"  Well,  sure  enough,  my  mother  was  right,  this  time. 
There  was  a  burglar  in  the  house.  The  pantry  window 
stood  open,  and  a  light  was  shining  in  the  kitchen.  My 
father  crept  softly  forward,  and  peeped  through  the 
partly  open  door.  There  sat  the  burglar,  eating  cold 
beef  and  pickles,  and  there,  beside  him,  on  the  floor,  gaz- 


42  NOVEL  NOTES. 

ing  up  into  his  face  with  a  blood-curdling  smile  of  affec- 
tion, sat  that  idiot  of  a  dog,  wagging  his  tail. 

"  My  father  was  so  taken  aback  that  he  forgot  to  keep 
silent. 

"  '  Well,  I'm '  and  he  used  a  word  that  I  should  not 

care  to  repeat  to  you  fellows. 

"The  burglar,  hearing  him,  made  a  dash,  and  got 
clear  off  by  the  window  ;  and  the  dog  seemed  vexed 
with  my  father  for  having  driven  him  away. 

"  Next  morning,  we  took  the  dog  back  to  the  trainer 
from  whom  we  had  bought  it. 

" '  What  do  you  think  I  wanted  this  dog  for  ? '  asked 
my  father,  trying  to  speak  calmly. 

"  '  Well,'  replied  the  trainer,  '  you  said  you  wanted  a 
good  house  dog.' 

" '  Exactly  so,'  answered  the  dad.  '  I  didn't  ask  for 
a  burglar's  companion,  did  I  ?  I  didn't  say  I  wanted  a 
dog  who'd  chum  on  with  a  burglar  the  first  time  he  ever 
came  to  the  house,  and  sit  with  him  while  he  had  his 
supper,  in  case  he  might  feel  lonesome,  did  I  ? '  And 
my  father  recounted  the  incidents  of  the  previous  night. 

"  The  man  agreed  that  there  was  cause  for  complaint. 
'  I'll  tell  you  what  it  is,  sir,'  he  said.  '  It  was  my  boy 
Jim  as  trained  this  'ere  dawg,  and  I  guess  the  young 
beggar's  taught  'im  more  about  tackling  rats  than  burg- 
lars. You  leave  'im  with  me  for  a  week,  sir  ;  I'll  put 
that  all  right.' 

"  We  did  so,  and  at  the  end  of  the  time  the  trainer 
brought  him  back  again. 

"'You'll  find  'im  game  enough  now,  sir,' said  the  man. 
'  'E  aint  what  I  call  an  interlectual  dawg,  but  I  think 
I've  knocked  the  right  idea  into  'im.' 

"  My  father  thought  he'd  like  to  test  the  matter,  so 
we  hired  a  man  for  a  shilling  to  break  in  through  the 


XOl'EL   NOTES. 


45 


kitchen   window   while  the   trainer  held   the   dog  by  a 

chain.     The  dog  remained  perfectly  quiet  until  the  man 

was  fairly  inside.      Then  he  made  one  savage  spring  at 

him,  and  if  the  chain  had 

not  been  stout  the  fellow  ^jfj^^jjj^r 

would    have    earned    his 

shilling  dearlv. 

"The  dad  was  satisfied 
now  that  he  could  go  to 
bed  in  peace  ;  and  the 
mater's  alarm  for  the 
safety  of  the  local  burg- 
lars was  proportionately 
increased. 

"  Months  passed  un- 
eventfully by,  and  then 
another  burglar  sampled 
our  house.  This  time 
there  could  be  no  doubt 
that  the  dog  was  doing 
something  for  his  living. 

The  din  in  the  base- 
ment was  terrific.  The 
house  shook  with  the  con- 

~^Cfc.'" 

CUSsioil  Of  fallen  bodies.        "THE  TRAINER  BROUGHT  HIM  BACK-  AGAIN.' 

'•  My    father    snatched 

up  his  revolver  and  rushed  downstairs,  and  1  followed 
him.  The  kitchen  was  in  confusion.  Tables  and  chairs 
were  overturned,  and  on  the  floor  lay  a  man  gurgling  for 
help.  The  dog  was  standing  over  him,  choking  him. 

"The  pater  held  his  revolver  to  the  man's  ear,  while 
I,  by  superhuman  effort,  dragged  our  preserver  away 
and  chained  him  up  to  the  sink,  after  which  I  lit  the 
gas. 


44 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


"  Then  we  perceived  that  the  gentleman  on  the  floor 
was  a  police  constable. 

"  '  Good  Heavens  ! '  exclaimed  my  father,  dropping  the 
revolver,  '  however  did  you  come  here  ? ' 

"  '  'Ow  did  /  come  'ere  ? '  retorted  the  man,  sitting  up 
and  speaking   in   a  tone  of  bitter,  but  not   unnatural 
indignation.     '  Why,  in  the  course   of   my  duty,  that's 
'ow  /  come  'ere.     I  see  a  burglar  getting  in  through  the 
window,  so  I  just  follows  and  slips  in  after  'im.' 
"  '  Did  you  catch  him  ? '  asked  my  father. 
"  '  Did  I  catch  'im  ! '  almost  shrieked  the  man.     '  'Ow 
could  I  catch  'im  with  that  blasted  dog  of  yours  'olding 
me  down  by  the  throat  while  'e  lights  'is  pipe  and  walks 
out  by  the  back  door.' 

"  The  dog  was  for  sale  the  next  day.  The  mater,  who 
had  grown  to  like  him,  because  he 
let  the  baby  pull  his  tail,  wanted 
us  to  keep  him.  The  mistake,  she 
said,  was  not  the  animal's 
fault.  Two  men  broke 
into  the  house  almost  at 
the  same  time.  The  dog 
could  not  go  for  both  of 
them.  He  did  his  best, 
and  went  for  one.  That 
his  selection  should  have 
fallen  upon  the  police- 
man instead  of  upon  the 
burglar  was  unfortunate. 
But  still  it  was  a  thing 
that  might  have  happened 
to  any  dog. 

"  My  father,  however,  had  become  prejudiced  against 
the  dog,  and  that  same  week  he  inserted  an  advertise- 


NOVEL  NOTES.  45 

ment  in  The  Field,  in  which  the  animal  was  recom- 
mended as  an  investment  likely  to  prove  useful  to  any 
enterprising  member  of  the  criminal  classes." 

MacShaughnassy  having  had  his  innings,  Jephson  took 
a  turn,  and  told  us  a  pathetic  story  about  an  unfortunate 
mongrel  that  was  run  over  in  the  Strand  one  day  and  its  leg 
broken.  A  medical  student,  who  was  passing  at  the  time, 
picked  it  up  and  carried  it  to  the  Charing  Cross  Hospital, 
where  its  leg  was  set,  and  where  it  was  kept  and  tended 
until  it  was  quite  itself  again,  when  it  was  sent  home. 

The  poor  thing  had  quite  understood  what  was  being 
done  for  it,  and  had  been  the  most  grateful  patient  they 
had  ever  had  in  the  hospital.  The  whole  staff  was  quite 
sorry  when  it  left. 

One  morning,  a  week  or  two  later,  the  house-surgeon, 
looking  out  of  the  window,  saw  the  dog  coming  down  the 
street.  When  it  came  near  he  noticed  that  it  had  a  penny 
in  its  mouth.  A  cat's-meat  barrow  was  standing  by  the 
curb,  and  fora  moment,  as  he  passed  it,  the  dog  hesitated. 

But  his  nobler  nature  asserted  itself,  and,  walking 
straight  up  to  the  hospital  railings  and  raising  himself 
upon  his  hind  legs,  he  dropped  his  penny  into  the  con- 
tribution box. 

Jephson  nearly  cried  as  he  told  the  story.  He  said  it 
showed  such  a  beautiful  trait  in  the  dog's  character. 
The  animal  was  a  poor  outcast,  vagrant  thing,  that  had 
perhaps  never  possessed  a  penny  before  in  all  its  life, 
and  might  never  have  another.  He  said  that  the  dog's 
penny  seemed  to  him  to  be  a  greater  gift  than  the  big- 
gest check  that  the  wealthy  patron  ever  signed. 

He  added  that  it  was  a  true  story,  he  knew,  because 
he  had  had  it  from  the  house-surgeon  himself. 

It  sounded  like  a  house-surgeon's  story. 

The  other  three  were  very  eager  now  to  get  to  work 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


on  the  novel,  but  I  did  not  quite  see  the  fairness  of  this. 
1  had  one  or  two  dog  stories  of  my  own. 

I  knew  a  black  and  tan  terrier  years  ago.     He  lodged  in 
the  same  house  with  me. 
He  did  not  belong  to  any- 
one.     He  had  discharged    /    '• 
his  owner  (if,  indeed,  he   A^y  I  , 

M: 


"  TOOK   HIS    MEALS    WITH    THE    OTHER    LODGERS." 


had  ever  permitted  himself  to  possess  one,  which  is  doubt- 
ful, having  regard  to  the  aggressive  independence  of  his 
character),  and  was  now  running  himself  entirely  on  his 
own  account.  He  appropriated  the  front  hall  for  his 
sleeping  apartment,  and  took  his  meals  with  the  other 
lodgers  —  whenever  they  happened  to  be  having  meals. 

At  five  o'clock  he  would  take  an  earl)7  morning  snack 
with  young  Hollis,  an  engineer's  pupil,  who  had  to  get 
up  at  half-past  four  and  make  his  own  coffee,  so  as  to 
be  down  at  the  works  by  six. 

At  8.30  A.  M.  he  would  breakfast  in  a  more  sensible 
fashion  with  Mr.  Blair,  on  the  first  floor,  and  on  occa- 
sions would  join  Jack  Gadbut,  who  was  a  late  riser,  in  a 
deviled  kidney  at  eleven. 

From  then  till  about  five,  when  I  generally  had  a  cup  of 
tea  and  a  chop,  he  regularly  disappeared.  Where  he  went 
and  what  he  did  between  those  hours  nobody  ever  knew. 
Gadbut  swore  that  twice  he  had  met  him  coming  out  of  a 
stockbroker's  office  in  Threadneedle  Street,  and,  improb- 
able though  the  statement  at  first  appeared,  some  color  of 


NOVEL  NOTES.  47 

credibility  began  to  attach  to  it  when  we  reflected  upon 
the  dog's  inordinate  passion  for  acquiring  and  hoarding 
coppers. 

This  craving  of  his  for  wealth  was  really  quite  remark- 
able. He  was  an  elderly  dog,  with  a  great  sense  of  his 
own  dignity  ;  yet,  on  the  promise  of  a  penny,  I  have 
seen  him  run  round  after  his  own  tail  until  he  didn't 
know  one  end  of  himself  from  the  other. 

He  used  to  teach  himself  tricks,  and  go  from  room  to 
room  in  the  evening  performing  them,  and  when  he  had 


"  STANDING  IN   A   CROWD,  WATCHING   A    PERFORMING    POODLE." 

completed  his  programme,  he  would  sit  up  and  beg. 
All  the  fellows  used  to  humor  him.  He  must  have  made 
pounds  in  the  course  of  a  year. 

Once,  just  outside  our  door,  I  saw  him  standing  in  a 
crowd,  watching  a  performing  poodle  attached  to  a 
hurdy-gurdy.  The  poodle  stood  on  his  head,  and  then, 
with  his  hind  legs  in  the  air,  walked  round  on  his  front 


48 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


paws.  The  people  laughed  very  much,  and,  when  after- 
ward he  came  among  them  with  his  wooden  saucer  in 
his  mouth,  they  gave  freely. 

Our  dog  came  in  and  immediately  commenced  to  study. 
In  three  days  he  could  stand  on  his  head  and  walk  round 
on  his  front  legs,  and  the  first  evening  he  did  so  he  made 
sixpence.  It  must  have  been  terrible  hard  work  for  him 
at  his  age,  and  subject  to  rheumatism  as  he  was ;  but  he 
would  do  anything  for  money.  I  believe  he  would  have 
sold  himself  to  the  devil  for  eightpence  down. 


"  HE    KNEW   THE   VALUE   OF   MONEY." 


He  knew  the  value  of  money.  If  you  held  out  to  him  a 
penny  in  one  hand  and  a  threepenny-bit  in  the  other,  he 
would  snatch  at  the  threepence,  and  then  break  his  heart 
because  he  could  not  get  the  penny  in  as  well.  You  might 
safely  have  left  him  in  the  room  with  a  leg  of  mutton,  but 
it  would  not  have  been  wise  to  leave  your  purse  about. 

Now  and  then  he  spent  a  little,  but  not  often.     He 


NOVEL   NOTES.  49 

was  desperately  fond  of  spongecakes,  and  occasionally, 
when  he  had  had  a  good  week,  he  would  indulge  himself 
to  the  extent  of  one  or  two.  But  he  hated  paying  for 
them,  and  always  made  a  frantic  and  frequently  success- 
ful effort  to  get  off  with  the  cake  and  the  penny  too. 
His  plan  of  operations  was  simple.  He  would  walk  into 
the  shop  with  his  penny  in  his  mouth,  well  displayed, 
and  a  sweet  and  lamblike  expression  in  his  eyes.  Tak- 
ing his  stand  as  near  to  the  cakes  as  he  could  get,  and 
fixing  his  eyes  affectionately  upon  them,  he  would  begin 
to  whine,  and  the  shopkeeper,  thinking  he  was  dealing 
with  an  honest  dog,  would  throw  him  one. 

To  get  the  cake  he  was  obliged,  of  course,  to  drop  the 
penny,  and  then  began  a  struggle  between  him  and  the 
shopkeeper  for  the  possession  of  the  coin.  The  man 
would  try  to  pick  it  up.  The  dog  would  put  his  foot 
upon  it,  and  growl  savagely.  If  he  could  finish  the  cake 
before  the  contest  was  over  he  would  snap  up  the  penny 
and  bolt.  I  have  known  him  to  come  home  gorged  with 
spongecakes,  the  original  penny  still  in  his  mouth. 

So  notorious  throughout  the  neighborhood  did  this 
dishonest  practice  of  his  become,  that  after  a  time  the 
majority  of  the  local  tradespeople  refused  to  serve  him 
at  all.  Only  the  exceptionally  quick  and  able-bodied 
would  attempt  to  do  business  with  him. 

Then  he  took  his  custom  further  afield,  into  districts 
where  his  reputation  had  not  yet  penetrated.  And  he 
would  pick  out  shops  kept  by  nervous  females  or  rheu- 
matic old  men. 

They  say  that  the  love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil. 
It  seemed  to  have  robbed  him  of  every  shred  of  principle. 

It  robbed  him  of  his  life  in  the  end,  and  that  came 
about  in  this  way.  He  had  been  performing  one  even- 
ing in  Gadbut's  room,  where  a  few  of  us  were  sitting 


50  NOVEL   NOTES. 

smoking  and  talking  ;  and  young  Hollis,  being  in  a  gen- 
erous mood,  had  thrown  him,  as  he  thought,  a  sixpence. 
The  dog  grabbed  it,  and  retired  under  the  sofa.  This 
was  an  odd  thing  for  him  to  do,  and  we  commented 
upon  it.  Suddenly  a  thought  occurred  to  Hollis,  and  he 
took  out  his  money  and  began  counting  it. 

"  By  Jove,"  he  exclaimed,  "  I've  given  that  little  beast 
half  a-sovereign — here,  Tiny  !  " 

But  Tiny  only  backed  farther  underneath  the  sofa, 
and  no  mere  verbal  invitation  would  induce  him  to  stir. 
So  we  adopted  a  more  pressing  plan,  and  coaxed  him 
out  by  .the  scruff  of  his  neck. 

He  came,  an  inch  at  a  time,  growling  viciously,  and 
holding    Hollis' 
half     sovereign 
tight      between 
his    teeth.     We 


tried  sweet  reasonableness  at  first.  We  offered  him 
a  sixpence  in  exchange  ;  he  looked  insulted,  and  evi- 
dently considered  the  proposal  as  tantamount  to  our 
calling  him  a  fool.  We  made  it  a  shilling,  then  half-a- 
crown — he  seemed  only  bored  by  our  persistence. 

"  I  don't  think  you'll  ever  see  this  half-sovereign  again, 


NOVEL  NOTES.  51 

Hollis,"  said  Gadbut,  laughing.  We  all  thought  the 
affair  a  very  good  joke,  all  except  young  Hollis.  He, 
on  the  contrary,  seemed  annoyed,  and,  taking  the  dog 
from  Gadbut,  made  an  attempt  to  pull  the  coin  out  of 
its  mouth. 

Tiny,  true  to  his  lifelong  principle  of  never  parting  if 
he  could  possibly  help  it,  held  on  like  grim  death,  until, 
feeling  that  his  little  earnings  were  slowly  but  surely 
going  from  him,  he  made  one  final  desperate  snatch,  and 
swallowed  the  money.  It  stuck  in  his  throat,  and  he 
began  to  choke. 

Then  we  became  seriously  alarmed  for  the  dog.  He 
was  an  amusing  chap,  and  we  did  not  want  any  accident 
to  happen  to  him.  Hollis  rushed  into  his  room  and  got 
a  long  pair  of  pinchers,  and  the  rest  of  us  held  the  little 
miser  while  he  tried  to  relieve  him  of  the  cause  of  his 
suffering. 

But  poor  Tiny  did  not  understand  our  intentions.  He 
still  thought  we  were  seeking  to  rob  him  of  his  night's 
takings,  and  resisted  vehemently.  His  struggles  fixed 
the  coin  firmer,  and,  in  spite  of  our  efforts,  he  died — one 
more  victim,  among  many,  to  the  fierce  fever  for  gold. 

I  dreamt  a  very  curious  dream  about  riches  once,  that 
made  a  great  impression  upon  me.  I  thought  that  I  and 
a  friend — a  very  dear  friend— were  living  together  in  a 
strange  old  house.  I  don't  think  anybody  else  dwelt  in 
the  house  but  just  we  two.  One  day,. wandering  about 
this  strange  old  rambling  place,  I  discovered  the  hidden 
door  of  a  secret  room,  and  in  this  room  were  many  iron- 
bound  chests,  and  when  I  raised  the  heavy  lids  I  saw 
that  each  chest  was  full  of  gold. 

And,  when  I  saw  this,  I  stole  out  softly  and  closed  the 
hidden  door,  and  drew  the  worn  tapestries  in  front  of  it 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


again,  and  crept  back  along  the  dim  corridor,  looking 
behind  me  fearfully. 

And  the  friend  that  I  had  loved  came  toward  me,  and 
we  walked  together  with  our  hands  clasped.  But  I 
hated  him. 

And  all  day  long  I  kept  beside  him,  or  followed  him 


"  EACH   CHEST  WAS  FULL 
OF   GOLD." 

)  unseen,  lest  by  chance  he 
should  learn  the  secret  of 
that  hidden  door  ;  and  at  night  I  lay  awake  watching  him. 

But  one  night  I  sleep,  and,  when  I  open  my  eyes,  he 
is  no  longer  near  me.  I  run  swiftly  up  the  narrow 
stairs  and  along  the  silent  corridor.  The  tapestry  is 
drawn  aside,  and  the  hidden  door  stands  open,  and  in 
the  room  beyond  the  friend  that  I  loved  is  kneeling 
before  an  open  chest,  and  the  glint  of  the  gold  is  in  my 
eyes. 

His  back  is  toward  me,  and  I  crawl  forward  inch  by 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


53 


inch ;    and    when   I  am  near  enough  I  kill  him  as  he 
kneels  there. 

His  body  falls  against  the  door,  and  it  shuts  to  with  a 
clang,  and  I  try  to  open  it.  and  cannot.     I  beat  my  hands 
against  its  iron    nails, 
and    scream,    and    the 
dead  man  grins  at  me.  ; 

The   light   streams    in  I  '\ 

through   the  clink  be-  Hk 

neath  the  massive  door,  t{ 

and   fades,  and  comes     ; 


again,  and 
fades  again, 
and  I  gnaw  at 
the  oaken  lids 
of  the  iron- 
bound  chests, 
for  the  mad- 
ness of  hunger 
is  climbing  in- 
to my  brain. 
Then  I  awake,  and  find  that  I  really  am  hungry,  and 

remember  that  in  consequence  of  a  headache  I  did  not 

eat  my  dinner.     So  I  slip  on  a  few  clothes,  and  go  down 

so  the  kitchen  on  a  foraging  expedition. 

It  is  said  that  dreams  are  momentary  conglomerations 

of  thought,  centering  round  the  incident  that  awakens  us, 


54  NOVEL  NOTES. 

and,  as  with  most  scientific  facts,  this  is  occasionally 
true.  There  is  one  dream  that,  with  slight  variations,  is 
continually  recurring  to  me.  Over  and  over  again  I 
dream  that  I  am  suddenly  called  upon  to  act  an  impor- 
tant part  in  some  piece  at  the  Lyceum.  That  poor  Mr. 
Irving  should  invariably  be  the  victim  seems  unfair,  but 
really  it  is  entirely  his  own  fault.  It  is  he  who  persuades 
and  urges  me.  I  myself  would  much  prefer  to  remain 
quietly  in  bed,  and  I  tell  him  so.  But  he  does  not  study 
my  convenience.  Rethinks  only  of  himself,  and  insists 
on  my  getting  up  at  once  and  coming  down  to  the 
theater.  I  explain  to  him  that  I  can't  act  a  bit.  He 
seems  to  consider  this  unimportant,  and  says,  "  Oh,  that 
will  be  all  right."  We  argue  for  a  while,  but  he  makes 
the  matter  quite  a  personal  one,  and  to  oblige  him  and 
get  him  out  of  the  bedroom  I  consent,  though  much 
against  my  own  judgment.  I  generally  dress  the  char- 
acter in  my  nightshirt,  though  on  one  occasion,  for  Ban- 
quo,  I  wore  pajamas — but  then  that  was  a  swell  part — 
and  I  never  remember  a  single  word  of  what  I  ought 
to  say.  How  I  get  through  I  do  not  know.  Irving  comes 
up  afterward  and  congratulates  me,  but  whether  upon  the 
brilliancy  of  my  performance,  or  upon  my  luck  in  getting 
off  the  stage  before  a  brickbat  is  thrown  at  me,  I  cannot 
say. 

Whenever  I  dream  this  incident  I  invariably  wake  up 
to  find  that  the  bedclothes  are  on  the  floor,  and  that  I  am 
shivering  with  cold  ;  .and  it  is  this  shivering,  I  suppose, 
that  causes  me  to  dream  I  am  wandering  about  the 
Lyceum  stage  in  nothing  but  my  nightshirt.  But  still  I 
do  not  understand  why  it  should  always  be  the  Lyceum. 

Another  dream  which  I  fancy  I  have  dreamt  more 
than  once — or,  if  not,  I  have  dreamt  that  I  dreamt  it 
before,  a  thing  one  sometimes  does— is  one  in  which  I  am 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


55 


walking  down  a  very  wide  and  very  long  road  in  the 
East  End  of  London.  It  is  a  curious  road  to  find  there. 
Omnibuses  and  trams  pass  up  and  down  and  it  is  crowded 
with  stalls  and  bar- 
rows, beside  which 
men  in  greasy  caps 
stand  shouting  ;  yet 
on  each  side  it  is 


bordered    by    a    strip  of 
tropical    forest.     The    road,  in 
fact,  combines  the  advantages 
of  Kew  and  Whitechapel. 

Someone  is  with  me,  but  I 
cannot  see  him,  and  we  walk 
through  the  forest,  pushing  our  way  among  the  tangled 
vines  that  cling  about  our  feet,  and  every  now  and  then, 
between  the  giant  tree  trunks,  we  catch  glimpses  of  the 
noisy  street. 

At  the  end  of  this  road  there  is  a  narrow  turning,  and 
when  I  come  to  it  I  am  afraid,  though  I  do  not  know  why 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


I  am  afraid.  It  leads  to  a  house  that  I  once  lived  in 
when  a  child,  and  now  there  is  someone  waiting  there 
who  has  something  to  tell  me. 

I  turn  to  run  away.  A  Blackwall  'bus  is  passing,  and 
I  try  to  overtake  it.  But  the  horses  turn  into  skeletons 
and  gallop  away  from  me,  and  my  feet  are  like  lead,  and 
the  thing  that  is  with  me,  and  that  I  cannot  see,  seizes  me 
by  the  arm,  and  drags  me  back. 

It  forces  me  along,  and  into  the  house,  and  the  door 
slams  to  behind  us,  and  the  sound  echoes  through  the 

lifeless  rooms.  1 
•  recognize  the 
rooms;  I  laughed 
and  cried  in  them 
long  ago.  Noth- 
ing is  changed. 
The  chairs  stand 
in  their  places, 
empty.  My 
mother's  knitting 
lies  upon  the  hearthrug, 
where  the  kitten,  I  remem- 
ber, dragged  it,  some- 
where back  in  the  sixties. 
I  go  up  into  my  own  little  attic.  My  cot  stands  in  the 
corner,  and  my  bricks  lie  tumbled  out  upon  the  floor  (I 
was  always  an  untidy  child).  An  old  man  enters — an 
old,  bent,  withered  man — holding  a  lamp  above  his  head, 
and  I  look  at  his  face,  and  it  is  my  own  face.  And 
another  enters,  and  he  also  is  myself.  Then  more  and 
more,  till  the  room  is  thronged  with  faces,'and  the  stair- 
way beyond,  and  all  the  silent  house.  Some  of  the 
faces  are  old  and  others  young,  and  some  are  fair  and 
smile  at  me,  and  many  are  foul  and  leer  at  me.  And 


NOVEL  NOTES.  57 

every   face   is   my   own    face,  but  no  two  of  them  are 
alike. 

I  do  not  know  why  the  sight  of  myself  should  alarm 
me  so,  but  I  rush  from  the  house  in  terror,  and  the  faces 
follow  me  ;  and  I  run  faster  and  faster,  but  I  know  that 
I  shall  never  leave  them  behind  me. 

As  a  rule  one  is  the  hero  of  one's  own  dreams,  but  at 
times  I  have  dreamt  a  dream  entirely  in  the  third  per- 
son— a  dream  with  the  incidents  of  which  I  have  had  no 
connection  whatever,  except  as  an  unseen  and  impotent 
spectator.  One  of  these  I  have  often  thought  about 
since,  wondering  if  it  could  not  be  worked  up  into  a 
story.  But  perhaps  it  would  be  too  painful  a  theme. 

I  dreamt  I  saw  a  woman's  face  among  a  throng.  It 
is  an  evil  face,  but  there  is  a  strange  beauty  in  it.  I  see 
it  come  and  go,  moving  in  and  out  among  the  shadows. 
The  flickering  gleams  thrown  by  street  lamps  flash  down 
upon  it,  showing  the  wonder  of  its  evil  fairness.  Then 
the  lights  go  out. 

I  see  it  next  in  a  place  that  is  very  far  away,  and  it  is 
even  more  beautiful  than  before,  for  the  evil  has  gone 
out  of  it.  Another  face  is  looking  down  into  it,  a  bright, 
pure  face.  The  faces  meet  and  kiss,  and,  as  his  lips 
touch  hers,  the  blood  mounts  to  her  cheeks  and  brow. 
I  see  the  two  faces  again.  But  I  cannot  tell  where  they 
are  or  how  long  a  time  has  passed.  The  man's  face  has 
grown  a  little  older,  but  it  is  still  young  and  fair,  and 
when  the  woman's  eyes  rest  upon  it  there  comes  a 
glory  into  her  face,  so  that  it  is  like  the  face  of  an  angel. 
But  at  times  the  woman  is  alone,  and  then  I  see  the  old 
evil  look  struggling  back. 

Then  I  see  clearer.  I  see  the  room  in  which  they 
live.  It  is  very  poor.  An  old-fashioned  piano  stands  in 


5 8  NOVEL   NOTES. 

one  corner,  and  beside  it  is  a  table  on  which  lie  scattered 
a  tumbled  mass  of  papers  round  an  inkstand.  An  empty 
chair  waits  before  the  table.  The  woman  sits  by  the 
open  window. 

She  seems  to  be  sitting  there  for  a  long  while.  From 
far  below  there  rises  the  sound  of  a  great  city.  Its  lights 
throw  up  faint  beams  into  the  dark  room.  The  smell  of 
its  streets  is  in  the  woman's  nostrils. 

Every  now  and  again  she  looks  toward  the  door 
and  listens,  then  turns  to  the  open  window.  And  I 
notice  that  each  time  she  looks  toward  the  door  the  evil 
in  her  face  shrinks  back  ;  but  each  time  she  turns  to  the 
window  it  grows  more  fierce  and  sullen. 

Suddenly  she  starts  up,  and  there  is  a  terror  in  her 
eyes  that  frightens  me  as  I  dream,  and  I  see  great  beads 
of  sweat  upon  her  brow.  Then,  very  slowly,  her  face 
changes,  and  I  see  again  the  evil  creature  of  the  night. 
She  wraps  around  her  an  old  cloak,  and  creeps  out.  I 
hear  her  footsteps  going  down  the  stairs.  They  grow 
fainter  and  fainter.  I  hear  a  door  open.  The  roar  of 
the  streets  rushes  up  into  the  house,  and  the  woman's 
footsteps  are  swallowed  up. 

Time  drifts  onward  through  my  dream.  Scenes 
>hange,  take  shape,  and  fade  ;  but  all  is  vague  and  un- 
defined, until,  out  of  the  dimness,  there  fashions  itself  a 
long,  deserted  street.  The  lights  make  glistening  circles 
on  the  wet  pavement.  A  figure,  dressed  in  gaudy  rags, 
slinks  by,  keeping  close  against  the  wall.  Its  back  is 
toward  me,  and  I  do  not  see  its  face.  Another  figure 
glides  from  out  the  shadows.  I  look  upon  its  face,  and 
I  see  it  is  the  face  that  the  woman's  eyes  gazed  up  into 
and  worshiped  long  ago  when  my  dream  was  just  begun. 
But  the  fairness  and  the  purity  are  gone  from  it,  and  it 
is  old  and  evil,  as  the  woman's  when  I  looked  upon  her 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


59 


last.  The  figure  in  the  gaudy  rags  moves  slowly 
on.  The  second  figure  follows  it,  and  overtakes  it. 
The  two  pause,  and  speak  to  one  another  as  they  draw 
near.  The  street  is  very  dark  where  they  have  met,  and 
the  figure  in  the  gaudy  rags  keeps  its  face  still  turned 
aside.  They  walk  on  together,  side  by  side,  in  silence, 


till  they  come  to  where  a  flaring  gas-lamp  hangs  before 
a  tavern  ;  and  there  the  woman  turns,  and  1  see  that  it 
is  the  woman  of  my  dream.  And  she  and  the  man  look 
into  each  other's  eyes  once  more. 

In  another  dream  that  I   remember,  an  angel   (or  a 
devil,  I  am  not  quite  sure   which)   has  come  to  a  man 


6o  NOVEL  NOTES. 

and  told  him  that  so  long  as  he  loves  no  living  human 
thing — so  long  as  he  never  suffers  himself  to  feel  one 
touch  of  tenderness  toward  wife  or  child,  toward' kith  or 
kin,  toward  stranger  or  toward  friend,  so  long  will  he 
succeed  and  prosper  in  his  dealing — so  long  will  all  this 
world's  affairs  go  well  with  him  ;  and  he  will  grow  each 
day  richer  and  greater  and  more  powerful.  But  if  ever 
he  let  one  kindly  thought  for  living  thing  to  come  into 
his  heart,  in  that  moment  all  his  plans  and  schemes  will 
topple  down  about  his  ears  ;  and  from  that  hour  his 
name  will  be  despised  by  men,  and  then  forgotten. 

And  the  man  treasures  up  these  words,  for  he  is  an 
ambitious  man,  and  wealth  and  fame  and  power  are  the 
sweetest  things  in  all  the  world  to  him.  A  woman  loves 
him  and  dies,  thirsting  for  a  loving  look  from  him  ; 
children's  footsteps  creep  into  his  life  and  steal  away 
again  ;  old  races  fade  and  new  ones  come  and  go. 

But  never  a  kindly  touch  of  his  hand  rests  on  any  liv- 
ing thing  ;  never  a  kindly  word  comes  from  his  lips  ; 
never  a  kindly  thought  springs  from  his  heart.  And  in 
all  his  doings  fortune  favors  him. 

The  years  pass  by,  and  at  last  there  is  left  to  him  only 
one  thing  that  he  need  fear — a  child's  small,  wistful  face. 
The  child  loves  him,  as  the  woman,  long  ago,  had  loved 
him,  and  her  eyes  follow  him  with  a  hungry,  beseeching 
look.  But  he  sets  his  teeth,  and  turns  away  from  her. 

The  little  face  grows  thin  and  white,  and  one  day  they 
come  to  him  where  he  sits  before  the  keyboard  of  his 
many  enterprises,  and  tell  him  she  is  dying.  He  comes 
and  stands  beside  the  bed,  and  the  child's  eyes  open  and 
turn  toward  him  ;  and,  as  he  draws  nearer,  her  little 
arms  stretch  out  toward  him,  pleading  dumbly.  But  the 
man's  face  never  changes,  and  the  little  arms  fall  feebly 
back  upon  the  tumbled  coverlet,  and  the  wistful  eyes 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


6l 


grow  still,  and  a  woman  steps  softly  forward,  and  draws 
the  lids  down  over  them  ;  then  the  man  goes  back  to  his 
plans  and  schemes. 

But  in  the  night,  when  the  great  house  is  silent,  he 
steals  up  to  the  room  where  the 
child  still  lies,  and  pushes  back 
the  white,  uneven  sheet. 


PLEADING    DUMB 


"  Dead— dead,"  he  mutters.  Then  he  takes  the  tiny 
corpse  up  in  his  arms,  and  holds  it  tight  against  his 
breast,  and  kisses  the  cold  lips,  and  the  cold  cheeks,  and 
the  little  cold,  stiff  hands. 

And  at  that  point  my  story  becomes  impossible,  for  I 
dream  that  the  dead  child  lies  always  beneath  the  sheet 
in  that  quiet  room,  and  that  the  little  face  never  changes, 
nor  the  limbs  decay. 


62  NOVEL  NOTES. 

I  puzzle  about  this  for  an  instant,  but  soon  forget  to 
wonder  ;  for  when  the  Dream  Fairy  tells  us  tales  we  are 
only  as  little  children,  sitting  round  with  open  eyes,  be- 
lieving all,  though  marveling  that  such  things  should  be. 

Each  night,  when  all  else  in  the  house  sleeps,  the  door 
of  that  room  opens  noiselessly,  and  the  man  enters  and 
closes  it  behind  him  gently.  Each  night  he  draws  away 
the  white  sheet,  and  takes  the  small  dead  body  in  his 
arms  ;  and  through  the  dark  hours  he  paces  softly  to 
and  fro,  holding  it  close  against  his  breast,  kissing  it 
and  crooning  to  it,  like  a  mother  to  her  sleeping  baby. 

When  the  first  ray  of  dawn  peeps  into  the  room,  he 
lays  the  dead  child  back  again,  and  smooths  the  sheet 
above  her,  and  steals  away. 

And  he  succeeds  and  prospers  in  all  things,  and  each 
day  he  grows  richer  and  greater  and  more  powerful. 


TAKES  THE  SMALL  DEAD  BODV  IN  HIS  ARMS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

|E  had  a  deal  of  trouble  with  our  heroine. 
Brown  wanted  her  ugly.  Brown's  chief 
ambition  in  life  is  to  be  original,  and  his 
method  of  obtaining  the  original  is  to  take 
the  unoriginal  and  turn  it  upside  down.  If  Brown  were 
given  a  little  planet  of  his  own  to  do  as  he  liked  with  he 
would  call  day,  night,  and  summer,  winter.  He  would 
make  all  his  men  and  women  walk  on  their  heads,  and 
shake  hands  with  their  feet,  his  trees  would  grow  with 
their  roots  in  the  air,  and  the  old  cock  would  lay  all  the 
eggs  while  the  hens  sat  on  the  fence  and  crowed.  Then 
he  would  step  back  and  say,  "  See  what  an  original 
world  I  have  created,  entirely  my  own  idea  !  " 

There  are  many  other  people  besides  Brown  whose 
notion  of  originality  would  seem  to  be  precisely  similar. 
I  know  a  little  girl,  the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of 
politicians.  The  hereditary  instinct  is  so  strongly  devel- 
oped in  her  that  she  is  almost  incapable  of  thinking  for 
herself.  Instead,  she  copies  in  everything  her  elder 
sister,  who  takes  more  after  the  mother.  If  her  sister 
has  two  helpings  of  rice  pudding  for  supper,  then  she 
has  two  helpings  of  rice  pudding.  If  her  sister  isn't 
hungry  and  doesn't  want  any  supper  at  all,  then  she 
goes  to  bed  without  any  supper. 

This  lack  of  character  in  the  child  troubles  her  mother, 
who  is  not  an  admirer  of  the  political  virtues,  and  one 
evening,  taking  the  little  one  on  her  lap,  she  talked 
seriously  to  her. 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


"Do  try  to  think  for  yourself,"  said  she.  "Don't 
always  do  just  what  Jessie  does  ;  that's  silly.  Have  an 
idea  of  your  own  now  and  then.  Be  a  little  original." 

Then  the  child 
promised  she'd  try, 
and  went  to  bed 
thoughtful. 

Next  morning,  for 
breakfast,  a  dish  of 
kippers  and  a   dish 
of     kidneys      were 
placed  on  the  table 
side  by  side.     Now 
the  child  loved  kip- 
pers with   an  affec- 
tion that  amounted 
almost  to 
a  passion, 
pgSjH^  while  she 
loathed 

kidneys  worse  than  powders.     It  was  the  one  subject  on 
which  she  did  know  her  own  mind. 

"A  kidney  or  a  kipper  for  you,  Jessie  ?"  asked  the 
mother,  addressing  the  elder  child  first. 

Jessie  hesitated  for  a  moment,  while  the  sister  sat 
regarding  her  in  an  agony  of  suspense. 

"  Kipper,  please,  ma,"  Jessie  answered  at  last,  and 
the  younger  child  turned  her  head  away  to  hide  the 
tears. 

"  You'll  have  a  kipper,  of  course,  Trixy  ?  "  said  the 
mother,  who  had  noticed  nothing. 

"  No,  thank  you,  ma,"  said  the  small  heroine,  stifling 
a  sob,  and  speaking  in  a  dry,  tremulous  voice,  "  I'll 
have  a  kidney." 


NOVEL  NOTES.  65 

"But  I  thought  you  couldn't  bear  kidneys,"  exclaimed 
her  mother,  surprised. 

"  No,  ma  ;  I  don't  like  'em  much." 
"  And  you're  so  fond  of  kippers  ?  " 
"  Yes,  ma." 


URST   INTO   TEARS." 


"Well,  then,  why  on  earth  don't  you  have  one  ?  " 
"  'Cos  Jessie's  going  to  have  one,  and  you  told  me  to 
be  original,"  and   here   the  poor  mite,  reflecting  upon 
the  price  her  originality  was  going  to  cost  her,  burst  into 
tears. 

The  other  three  of  us  refused  to  sacrifice  ourselves 
upon  the  altar  of  Brown's  originality.  We  decided  to 
be  content  with  the  customary  beautiful  girl. 

"  Good  or  bad  ? "  queried  Brown. 


66 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


"  Bad,"  responded  MacShaughnassy  emphatically. 
"What  do  you  say,  Jephson  ?" 

"  Well,"  replied  Jephson,  taking  the  pipe  from  between 

his  lips,  and  speak- 
ing in  that  soothing, 
melancholy  tone  of 
voice  that  he  never 
varies,  whether  tell- 
ing a  joke  about  a 
wedding  or  anecdote 
relating  to  a  funeral, 
"  not  altogether  bad. 
Bad,  with  good  in- 
stincts, the  good  in- 


stincts  well    under 
control." 

"  I  wonder  why  it 
is,"murmured  Mac- 
Shaughnassy reflec- 
tively, "  that  bad 
people  are  so  much 
more  interesting 
than  good." 

"  I  don't  think 
the  reason  is  very 
difficult  to  find," 

answered  Jephson.  "  There's  more  uncertainty  about 
them.  They  keep  you  more  on  the  alert.  It's  like  the 
difference  between  riding  a  well-broken,  steady-going 


NOVEL  NOTES.  67 

hack  and  a  lively  young  colt  with  ideas  of  his  own.  The 
one  is  comfortable  to  travel  with,  but  the  other  provides 
you  with  more  exercise.  If  you  start  off  with  a 
thoroughly  good  woman  for  your  heroine  you  give  your 
story  away  in  the  first  chapter.  Everybody  knows  pre- 
cisely how  she  will  behave  under  every  conceivable  com- 
bination of  circumstances  in  which  you  can  place  her. 
On  every  occasion  she  will  do  the  same  thing — that  is, 
the  right  thing. 

"  With  a  bad  heroine,  on  the  other  hand,  you  can 
never  be  quite  sure  what  is  going  to  happen.  Out  of 
the  fifty  or  so  courses  open  to  her,  she  may  take  the 
right  one,  or  she  may  take  one  of  the  forty- nine  wrong 
ones,  and  you  watch  her  with  curiosity  to  see  which  it 
will  be." 

"  But  surely  there  are  plenty  of  good  heroines  who  are 
interesting,"  I  said. 

"  At  intervals — when  they  do  something  wrong," 
answered  Jephson  dryly.  "  A  consistently  irreproach- 
able heroine  is  as  irritating  to  the  average  reader  as 
Socrates  must  have  been  to  Xantippe,  or  as  the  model 
boy  at  school  is  to  all  the  other  lads.  Take  the  stock 
heroine  of  the  eighteenth  century  romance.  She  never 
met  her  lover  except  for  the  purpose  of  telling  him  that 
she  could  never  be  his,  and  she  generally  wept  steadily 
throughout  the  interview.  She  never  forgot  to  turn  pale 
at  the  sight  of  blood,  nor  to  faint  in  his  arms  at  the  most 
inconvenient  moment  possible.  She  was  determined 
never  to  marry  without  her  father's  consent,  and  was 
equally  resolved  never  to  marry  anybody  but  the  one  par- 
ticular person  she  was  convinced  he  would  never  agree 
to  her  marrying.  She  was  an  excellent  young  woman, 
and  nearly  as  uninteresting  as  a  celebrity  at  home." 

"  Ah,  but  you're  not  talking  about  good  women  now," 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


I  observed.     "  You're  talking  about  some  silly  person's 
idea  of  a  good  woman." 

"I  quite  admit  it,"  replied    Jephson.     "  Nor,  indeed, 
am  I  prepared  to  say  what   is  a  good 
woman.     I    consider    the    subject    too 
IS       deep    and    too    complicated    for    any 
mere  human  being  to  give  a  judgment 
upon.     But  I  am  talking  of  the  women 
who  conformed  to  the 
popular  idea  of  maid- 
enly goodness  in  the 
age  when  these  books 
were     written.      You 
must  remember  good- 
ness  is  not  a  known 
quantity.      It     varies 
with    every   age    and 
every  locality,  and  it 
is,  generally  speaking, 
your    'silly    persons' 
who    are    responsible 
for   its  varying  stand- 
in  Japan,  a  ' good  ' 
girl    would    be   a   girl   who 
would  sell  her  honor  in  order 
to   afford    little  luxuries  to 
her  aged    parents.     In  cer- 
tain  hospitable  islands  of  the 
torrid  zone,  the  '  good  '  wife 
goes    to     lengths    that    we 
should  deem  altogether  un- 
necessary   in     making     her 
husband's  guest  feel  himself 
'THE  MOST  INCONVEMENT  *  3t  home.    I n  aucicn t  Hebraic 

MOMENT     1'OSSIBLE." 


NOVEL   NOTES.  69 

days,  Jael'vvas  accounted  a  good  woman  for  murdering 
a  sleeping  man,  and  Sarai  stood   in  no  danger  of   losing 


the  respect  of  her  little  world  when  she  led  Hagar  unto 
Abraham.  In  eighteenth  century  England,  supernatural 
stupidity  and  dullness  of  a  degree  that  must  have  been 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


difficult  to  attain  were  held  to  be  feminine  virtues — 
indeed,  they  are  so  still — and  authors,  who  are  always 
among  the  most  servile  followers  of  public  opinion, 
fashioned  their  puppets  accordingly.  Nowadays,  '  slum- 
ming' is  the  most  applauded  virtue,  and  so  all  our  best 
heroines  go  slumming,  and 
are  always  extra  '  good  to 
the  poor.'  " 

"  How  useful  '  the  poor  ' 
are,"  remarked  MacShaugh- 
nassy,  somewhat  abruptly, 
placing  his  feet  on  the  man- 


.END    HRK    ROUND    AMONG 


telpiece  and  tilting  his  chair  back  till  it  stood  at  an  angle 
that  caused  us  to  rivet  our  attention  upon  it  with  hope- 
ful interest.  "I  don't  think  we  scribbling  fellows  ever 
fully  grasp  how  much  we  owe  to  '  the  poor.'  Where 
would  our  angelic  heroines  and  our  noble-hearted  heroes 


NOVEL   NOTES.  1\ 

be  if  it  were  not  for  '  the  poor '  ?  We  want  to  show  that 
the  dear  girl  is  as  good  as  she  is  beautiful.  What  do  we 
do?  We  put  a  basket  full  of  chickens  and  bottles  of 
wine  on  her  arm,  a  fetching  little  sunbonnet.on  her  head, 
and  send  her  round  among  '  the  poor.'  How  do  we 
prove  that  our  apparent  scamp  of  a  hero  is  really  a  noble 
young  man  at  heart  ?  Why  by  explaining  that  he  is  good 
to  the  poor. 

"They  are  as  useful  in  real  life  as  they  are  in  Book- 
land.  What  is  it  consoles  the  tradesman  when  the  actor 
earning  eighty  pounds  a  week  cannot  pay  his  debts  ? 
Why,  reading  in  the  theatrical  newspapers  gushing  ac- 
counts of  the  dear  fellow's  invariable  generosity  to  '  the 
poor.'  What  is  it  stills  the  small,  but  irritating,  voice  of 
conscience  when  we  have  successfully  accomplished  some 
extra  big  feat  of  swindling  ?  Why,  the  noble  resolve  to 
give  ten  per  cent,  of  the  net  profits  to  '  the  poor.' 

"What  does  a  man  do  when  he  finds  himself  growing 
old,  and  feels  that  it  is  time  for  him  to  think  seriously 
about  securing  his  position  in  the  next  world  ?  Why,  he 
becomes  suddenly  good  to  '  the  poor.'  If  the  poor  were 
not  there  for  him  to  be  good  to,  what  could  he  do  ?  He 
would  be  unable  to  reform  at  all.  It's  a  great  comfort 
to  think  that  the  poor  will  always  be  with  us.  They  are 
the  ladder  by  which  we  climb  into  heaven." 

There  was  silence  for  a  few  moments,  while  Mac- 
Shaughnassy  puffed  away  vigorously,  and  almost 
savagely,  at  his  pipe,  and  then  Brown  said,  "I  can  tell 
you  rather  a  quaint  incident,  bearing  very  aptly  on  the 
subject.  A  cousin  of  mine  was  a  land  agent  in  a  small 
country  town,  and  among  the  houses  on  his  list  was  a 
fine  old  mansion  that  had  remained  vacant  for  many 
years.  He  had  despaired  of  ever  selling  it,  when  one 
day  an  elderly  lady,  very  richly  dressed,  drove  up  to  the 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


office  and  made  inquiries  about  it.  She  said  she  had 
come  across  it  accidentally  while  traveling  through  that 
part  of  the  country  the  previous  autumn,  and  had  been 
much  struck  by  its  beauty 
and  picturesqueness.  She 
added  she  was  looking  out 
for  some  quiet  spot  where  she 
could  settle  down  and  peace- 
fully pass  the  remainder  of 


MADE   INQUIRIES   ABOUT   IT. 


her  days,  and  thought  this  place  might  possibly  prove 
to  be  the  very  thing  for  her. 

"  My  cousin,  delighted  with  the  chance  of  a  purchaser, 
at  once  drove  her  across  to  the  estate,  which  was  about 
eight  miles  distant  from  the  town,  and  they  went  over  it 
together.  My  cousin  waxed  eloquent  upon  the  subject 
of  it  advantages.  He  dwelt  upon  its  quiet  and  seclusion, 
its  proximity — but  not  too  close  proximity — to  the 
church,  its  convenient  distance  from  the  village. 

"  Everything  pointed  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion  of 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


75 


the  business.  The  lady  was  charmed  with  the  situation 
and  the  surroundings,  and  delighted  with  the  house  and 
grounds.  She  considered  the  price  moderate. 

"  '  And  now,  Mr.  Brown,'  said  she,  as  they  stood  by  the 


WHAT  CLASS  OF  POOR  HAVE  YOU  GOT  ROUND  ABOUT? 


lodge  gate,  '  tell  me,  what  class  of  poor  have  you  got 
round  about  ?  ' 

"  '  Poor  ?  '  answered  my  cousin,  '  there  are  no  poor.' 
"  '  No  poor  !  '  exclaimed  the  lacty.     '  No  poor  people 
in  the  village,  or  anywhere  near?' 

'"You  won't  find  a  poor  person  within  five  miles  of 
the  estate,'  he  replied  proudly.  '  You  see,  my  dear 
madam,  this  is  a  thinly  populated  and  exceedingly  pros- 
perous county.  This  particular  district  is  especially  so. 


74  NOVEL  NOTES. 

There  is  not  a  family  in  it  that  is  not,  comparatively 
speaking,  well-to-do.' 

" '  I'm  sorry  to  hear  that,'  said  the  lady,  in  a  tone  of 
disappointment.  '  The  place  would  have  suited  me  so 
admirably  but  for  that.' 

"'But  surely,  madam,'  cried  my  cousin,  to  whom  a 
demand  for  poor  persons  was  an  entirely  new  idea,  '  you 
don't  mean  to  say  that  you  want  poor  people  !  Why, 
we've  always  considered  it  one  of  the  chief  attractions  of 
the  property — nothing  to  shock  the  eye  or  wound  the 
susceptibilities  of  the  most  tender-hearted  occupant.' 

" '  My  dear  Mr.  Brown,'  replied  the  lady,  '  I  will  be 
perfectly  frank  with  you.  I  am  becoming  an  old  woman, 
and  my  past  life  has  not  perhaps  been  altogether  too 
well  spent.  It  is  my  desire  to  atone  for  the — er — follies 
of  my  youth  by  an  old  age  of  well-doing,  and  to  that 
end  it  is  essential  that  I  should  be  surrounded  by  a  cer- 
tain number  of  deserving  poor.  I  had  hoped  to  find  in 
this  charming  neighborhood  of  yours  the  customary 
proportion  of  povert)7and  misery,  in  which  case  I  should 
have  taken  the  house  without  hesitation.  As  it  is,  I 
must  seek  elsewhere.' 

"  My  cousin  was  perplexed  and  sad.  '  There  are 
plenty  of  poor  people  in  the  town,'  he  said  ;  '  many  of 
them  most  interesting  cases,  and  you  could  have  the 
entire  care  of  them  all.  There'd  be  no  opposition  what- 
ever, I'm  positive.' 

"  '  Thank  you,'  replied  the  lady,  '  but  I  really  couldn't 
go  as  far  as  the  town.  They  must  be  within  easy  driv- 
ing distance  or  they  are  no  good.' 

"  My  cousin  cudgeled  his  brains  again.  He  did  not 
intend  to  let  a  purchaser  slip  through  his  fingers  if  he 
could  help  it.  At  last  a  bright  thought  flashed  into  his 
mind.  '  I'll  tell  you  what  we  could  do,'  he  said. 


ivOVEL  NOTES. 


75 


'  There's  a  piece  of  waste  land  at  the  other  end  of  the  vil- 
lage that  we've  never  been  able  to  do  much  with  in  con- 
sequence of  its  being  so 
swampy.  If  you  liked, 
we  could  run  you  up  a 
dozen  cottages  on  that 
cheap — it  would  be  all 
the  better  their  being  a 
bit  ramshackle  and  un- 
healthy—and get  some 
poor  people  for  you  and 
put  into  them.' 

"  The  lady  reflected  up- 
on the  idea,  and  it  struck 
her  as  a  good  one. 

"'You  see,'  continued 
my  cousin,  pushing  his 
advantage,  '  by  adopting 
this  method  you  would 
be  able  to  select  your 
own  poor.  We  would 
get  you  some  nice,  clean, 
grateful  poor,  and  make 


the  thing   pleas- 
ant  for  you.' 

"  It  ended   in  the  lady's  accepting  my  cousin's  offer, 
and  giving  him  a  list  of  the  poor  people  she  would  like 


70  NOVEL  NOTES. 

to  have.  She  selected  one  bedridden  old  woman  (Church 
of  England  preferred),  one  paralytic  old  man  ;  one  blind 
girl  who  would  want  to  be  read  aloud  to  ;  one  poor 
atheist,  willing  to  be  converted ;  two  cripples  ;  one 
drunken  father  who  would  consent  to  be  talked  to 
seriously  ;  one  disagreeable  old  fellow,  needing  much 
patience  ;  two  large  families,  and  four  ordinary  as- 
sorted couples. 

"  My  cousin  experienced  some  difficulty  in  securing 
the  drunken  father.  Most  of  the  drunken  fathers  he 
interviewed  upon  the  subject  had  a  rooted  objection  to 
being  talked  to  at  all.  After  a  long  search,  however, 
he  discovered  a  mild  little  man,  who,  upon  the  lady's 
requirements  and  charitable  intentions  being  explained 
to  him,  undertook  to  qualify  himself  for  the  vacancy  by 
getting  intoxicated  at  least  once  a  week.  He  said  he 
could  not  promise  more  than  once 
a  week  at  first,  he  unfortunately 
possessing  a  strong  natural  dis- 
taste for  all  alcoholic 
liquors  which  it  would 
be  necessary  for  him  to 
overcome.  As  he  got 
more  used  to  them,  he 
\  would  do  better. 
^S  "  Over  the  disagree- 
able old  man  my  cousin 
also  had  trouble.  It  was 
hard  to  hit  the  right  de- 
"A  DECAYED  CAB-DRIVER."  gree  of  d isagreeableness. 

Some  of  them  were  so  very  unpleasant.  He  event- 
ually made  choice  of  a  decayed  cab-driver  with 
advanced  Radical  opinions,  who  insisted  on  a  three- 
years'  contract. 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


77 


"  The  plan  worked  exceedingly  well,  and  does  so,  my 
cousin  tells  me,  to  this  day.  The  drunken  father  has 
completely  conquered  his  dislike  to  strong  drink.  He 
has  not  been  sober  now  for  over  three  weeks,  and 
has  lately  taken  to 
knocking  his  wife 
about.  The  disa- 
greeable fellow  is 
most  conscientious 
in  fulfilling  his  part 
of  the  bargain,  and 
makes  himself  a  per- 
fect curse  to  the 
whole  village.  The 
others  have  dropped 
into  their  respective 
positions  and  are 
working  well.  The 
lady  visits  them 
all  every  afternoon, 
and  is  most  chari- 
table. They  call 
her  Lady  Bounti- 
ful, and  everybody 
blesses  her.  It  is 
generally  felt  throughout  the  parish  that  if  she  does  not 
go  to  heaven,  then  it  will  be  because  heaven  doesn't 
know  its  own  business." 

Brown  rose  as  he  finished  speaking,  and  mixed  him- 
self a  glass  of  whisky  and  water  with  the  self-satisfied  air 
of  a  benevolent  man  about  to  reward  somebody  for  hav- 
ing done  a  good  deed  ;  and  MacShaughnassy  lifted  up 
his  voice  and  talked. 

"  I  know  a   story   bearing   on   the  subject,  too,"  he 


OF    HIS   OWN. 


78  NOVEL  NOTES. 

said  ;  "  but  mine  is  not  so  serious  as  yours.  It  hap- 
pened in  a  tiny  Yorkshire  village — a  peaceful,  respect- 
able spot,  where  folks  found  life  a  bit  slow.  One  day, 
however,  a  new  curate  arrived,  and  that  woke  things  up 
considerably.  He  was  a  nice  young  man,  and,  having  a 
large  private  income  of  his  own,  was  altogether  a  most 
desirable  catch.  Every  unmarried  female  in  the  place 
went  for  him  with  one  accord. 

"  But  ordinary  feminine  blandishments  appeared  to 
have  no  effect  upon  him.  He  was  a  seriously  inclined 
young  man,  and  once,  in  the  course  of  conversation  upon 
the  subject  of  love,  he  was  heard  to  say  that  he  himself 
should  never  be  attracted  by  mere  beauty  and  charm. 
What  would  appeal  to  him,  he  said,  would  be  a  woman's 
goodness — her  charity  and  kindliness  to  the  poor. 

"  Well,  that  set  the  petticoats  all  thinking.  They  saw 
that  in  studying  fashion  plates  and  practicing  expres- 
sions they  had  been  going  upon  the  wrong  tack.  The 
card  for  them  to  play  was  '  the  poor.' 

"  But  here  a  serious  difficulty  arose.  There  was  only 
one  poor  person  in  the  whole  parish,  a  cantankerous  old 
fellow  who  lived  in  a  tumble-down  cottage  at  the  back 
of  the  church,  and  fifteen  able-bodied  women  (eleven 
girls,  three  old  maids  and  a  widow),  wanted  to  be  '  good  ' 
to  him. 

"  Miss  Simmonds,  one  of  the  old  maids,  got  hold  of 
him  first,  and  commenced  feeding  him  twice  a  day  with 
beef  tea  ;  and  then  the  widow  boarded  him  with  port 
wine  and  oysters.  Later  in  the  week,  others  of  the  party 
drifted  in  upon  him,  and  wanted  to  cram  him  with  jelly 
and  chickens. 

"  The  old  man  couldn't  understand  it.  He  was  accus- 
tomed to  a  small  sack  of  coals  now  and  then,  accom- 
panied by  a  long  lecture  on  his  sins,  and  an  occasional 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


79 


bottle  of  dandelion  tea.  This  sudden  spurt  on  the  part 
of  Providence  puzzled  him.  He  said  nothing,  however, 
but  continued  to  take  in  as  much  of  everything  as  he 
could  hold.  At  the  end  of  a  month  he  was  too  fat  to 
get  through  his  own  back  door. 

"  The  competition  among  the  women  folk  grew  keener 


every  day,  and  at  last  the  old 
man  began  to  give  himself 
airs,  and  to  make  the  place 

hard  for  them.     He  made  them  clean  his  cottage  out, 

and  cook  his  meals,  and  when    he  was  tired  of  having 

them  about  the  house,  he  set  them  to  work  in  the  garden. 
"  They  grumbled  a  good  deal,  and  there  was  talk  at 

one  time  of  a  sort  of  a  strike,  but  what  could  they  do? 

He  was  the  only  pauper  for  miles  round,  and  knew  it. 

He    had  the    monopoly,  and,  like  all  monopolists,   he 

abused  his  position  shamefully. 


So 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


"  He  made  them  run  errands.  He  sent  them  out  to 
buy  his  '  baccy,' at  their  own  expense.  On  one  occa- 
sion he  sent  Miss  Simmonds  out  with  a  jug  to  get  his 
supper  beer.  She  indignantly  refused  at  first,  but  he 
told  her  that  if  she  gave  him  any  of  her  stuck-up  airs 
out  she  would  go,  and  never  come  into  his  house  again. 
If  she  wouldn't  do  it  there  were  plenty  of  others  who 
would.  She  knew  it  and  went. 

"  They  had  been  in  the  habit  of  reading  to  him — good 


"WITH  CHORUS  AND  SKIRT  DANOE." 


books  with  an  elevating  tendency.  But  now  he  put  his 
foot  down  upon  that  sort  of  thing.  He  said  he  didn't 
want  Sunday-school  rubbish  at  his  time  of  life.  What 
he  liked  was  something  spicy.  And  he  made  them  read 
him  French  novels  and  seafaring  tales,  containing  realistic 
language.  And  they  didn't  have  to  skip  anything  either, 
or  he'd  know  the  reason  why. 

"  He  said  he  liked  music,  so  a  few  of  them  clubbed 
together  and  bought  him  an  harmonium.  Their  idea 
was  that  they  would  sing  hymns  and  play  high-class 


NOVEL  NOTES.  81 

melodies,  but  it  wasn't  his.  His  idea  was — '  Keeping  up 
the  old  girl's  birthday  '  and  '  She  winked  the  other  eye,' 
with  chorus  and  skirt  dance,  and  that's  what  they  sang. 

"  To  what  lengths  his  tyranny  would  have  gone  it  is 
difficult  to  say,  had  not  an  event  happened  that  brought 
his  power  to  a  premature  collapse.  This  was  the  curate's 
sudden  and  somewhat  unexpected  marriage  with  a  very 
beautiful  burlesque  actress  who  had  lately  been  perform- 
ing in  a  neighboring  town.  He  gave  up  the  Church  on 
his  engagement,  in  consequence  of  hisfancSe's  objection 
to  becoming  a  minister's  wife.  She  said  she  could  never 
tumble  to  the  district  visiting. 

"  With  the  curate's  wedding,  the  old  pauper's  brief 
career  of  prosperity  ended.  They  packed  him  off  to  the 
workhouse  after  that,  and  made  him  break  stones." 

At  the  end  of  the  telling  of  his  tale,  MacShaughnassy 
lifted  his  feet  off  the  mantelpiece,  and  set  to  work  to 
wake  up  his  legs  ;  and  Jephson  took  a  hand,  and  began 
to  spin  us  stories. 

But  none  of  us  felt  inclined  to  laugh  at  Jephson's 
stories,  for  they  dealt  not  with  the  goodness  of  the  rich 
to  the  poor,  which  is  a  virtue  yielding  quick  and  highly 
satisfactory  returns,  but  with  the  goodness  of  the  poor 
to  the  poor,  a  somewhat  less  remunerative  investment 
and  a  different  matter  altogether. 

For  the  poor  themselves — not  the  noisy  professional 
poor  I  do  not  mean,  but  the  silent,  fighting  poor — one  is 
bound  to  feel  a  genuine  respect.  One  honors  them,  as 
one  honors  a  wounded,,  lean  old  soldier. 

In  the  perpetual  warfare  between  Humanity  and 
Nature,  the  poor  stand  always  in  the  van.  They  die  in 
the  ditches,  and  we  march  over  their  bodies  with  the 
flags  flying  and  the  drums  playing. 


82 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


I  can  never  think  of  them  myself  without  an  uncom- 
fortable feeling  that  I  ought  to  be  a  little  bit  ashamed  of 
living  in  security  and  ease,  leaving  them  to  take  all  the 


hard  blows.  It  is  as  if 
skulking  in  the  tents, 
rades  were  fighting  and 

They   bleed    and 
there.     Nature  with  • 
"  Survival     of    the 
Civilization        with 


one  were  always 
while  one's  corn- 
dying  in  the  front, 
fall  in  silence 
her  terrible  club, 
Fittest  "  ;  and 
her  cruel  sword, 
"  Supply  and  De- 
mand,"beat  them 
back,  and  they 
give  way  inch  by 
inch,  fighting  to 
the  end.  But  it 
is  in  a  dumb, 
silent  way,  that 
is  not  sufficiently 
picturesque  to  be 
heroic. 

I  remember 
seeing  an  old 
bull-dog,  one  Sat- 
urday night,  lying  on  the  doorstep  of  a  small  shop 
in  the  New  Cut.  He  lay  there  very  quiet,  and  seemed 
a  bit  sleepy  ;  and,  as  he  looked  savage,  nobody  dis- 
turbed him.  People  stepped  in  and  out  over  him, 
and  occasionally  in  doing  so,  one  would  accidently  kick 
him,  and  then  he  would  breathe  a  little  harder  and 
quicker. 

At  last,  a  passer-by,  feeling  something  wet  beneath  his 
feet,  looked  down,  and  found  that  he  was  standing  in  a 
pool  of  blood,  and,  looking  to  see  where  it  came  from, 


'SEEMED    A   BIT   SLEEPY. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  $3 

found  that  it  flowed  in  a  thick,  dark  stream  from  the 
step  on  which  the  dog  was  lying. 

Then  he  stooped  down  and  examined  the  dog,  and  the 
dog  opened  its  eyes  sleepily  and  looked  at  him,  gave  a 
grin  which  may  have  implied  pleasure,  or  may  have  im- 
plied irritation  at  being  disturbed,  and  died. 

A  crowd  collected,  and  they  turned  the  dead  body  of 
the  dog  over  on  its  side,  and  saw  a  fearful  gash  in  the 
groin,  out  of  which  oozed  blood,  and  other  things.  The 
proprietor  of  the  shop  said  the  animal  had  been  there  for 
over  an  hour. 

I  have  known  the  poor  to  die  in  that  same  grim,  silent 
way — not  the  poor  that  you,  my  delicately  gloved  Lady 
Bountiful  and  my  very  excellent  Sir  Simon  DoGood, 
know,  or  that  you  would  care  to  know  ;  not  the  poor  who 
march  in  processions  with  banners  and  collection-boxes  ; 
not  the  poor  that  clamor  round  your  soup  kitchens  and 
sing  hymns  at  your  tea  meetings  ;  but  the  poor  that  you 
don't  know  are  poor  until  the  tale  is  told  at  the  coroner's 
inquest — the  silent,  the  proud  poor  who  wake  each  morn- 
ing to  wrestle  with  Death  till  night-time,  and  who,  when 
at  last  he  overcomes  them,  and,  forcing  them  down  on 
the  rotting  floor  of  the  dim  attic,  strangles  them,  still 
die  with  their  teeth  tight  shut. 

There  was  a  boy  I  came  to  know  when  I  was  living  in 
the  East  End  of  London.  He  was  not  a  nice  boy  by  any 
means.  He  was  not  quite  so  clean  as  are  the  good  boys 
in  the  religious  magazines,  and  I  have  known  a  sailor  to 
stop  him  in  the  street  and  reprove  him  for  using  indeli- 
cate language.  But  he  was  a  boy  to  shake  hands  with  for 
all  that,  even  if  it  was  necessary  to  wipe  your  own  hands 
afterward. 

He  and  his  mother  and  the  baby,  a  sickly  infant  of 
about  five  months  old,  lived  in  a  cellar  down  a  turning 


84 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


off  Three  Colt  Street.  I  am  not  quite  sure  what  had  be- 
come of  the  father.  I  rather  think  he  had  heen  "  con- 
verted," and  had  gone  off  round  the  country  on  a  preach- 
ing tour.  The  lad  earned  six  shillings  a  week  as  an 
errand  boy  ;  and  the  mother  stitched  trousers,  and  on 
days  when  she  was  feeling  strong  and  energetic  would 
often  make  as  much  as  tenpence,  or  even  a  shilling.  Un- 
fortunately, there  were  days  when  the  four  bare  walls 


would  chase  each  other  round  and  round,  and  the  candle 
seem  a  faint  speck  of  light,  a  very  long  way  off  ;  and  the 
frequency  of  these  caused  the  family  income  for  the 
week  to  occasionally  fall  somewhat  low. 

One  night  the  walls  danced  round  quicker  and  quicker 
till  they  danced  away  altogether,  and  the  candle  shot  up 
through  the  ceiling  and  became  a  star  ;  and  the  woman 
knew  that  it  was  time  to  put  away  her  sewing. 

11  Jim,"  she  said  :  she  spoke  very  low,  and  the  boy  had 
to  bend  over  her  to  hear,  "  if  you  poke  about  in  the 
middle  of  the  mattress  you'll  find  a  couple  of  pounds.  I 


tiO V EL  NOTES.  85 

saved  them  up  a  long  while  ago.  That  will  pay  for 
burying  me.  And,  Jim,  you'll  take  care  of  the  kid. 
You  won't  let  it  go  on  the  parish." 

Jim  promised. 

"  Say,  '  S'welp  me  Gawd,'  Jim." 

"  S'welp  me  Gawd,  mother." 

Then  the  woman,  having  arranged  her  worldly  affairs, 
lay  back  ready,  and  Death  struck. 

Jim  kept  his  oath.  He  found  the  money,  and  buried 
his  mother  ;  and  then,  putting  his  household  goods  on  a 
barrow  moved  into  cheaper 
apartments — half  an  old  shed, 
for  which  he  paid  two  shillings 
a  week. 

For  eighteen  months  he  and 
the  baby  lived  there.     He  left 
the  child   at   a   nursery  every 
morning,  fetching  it  away  each  evening 
on  his  return  from  work,  and  for  that  he 
paid  fourpence  a  day,  which  included  a 
limited  supply  of  milk.     How  he  man- 
aged to  keep  himself  and  more  than 
half  keep  the  child  on  the  remaining 
two  shillings  I  cannot  say.     I  only  know 
that  he  did  it,  and  that  not  a  soul  ever 
helped  him   or   knew    that   there   was    "THE  CORONER  WAS 
help   wanted.     He    nursed    the   child,  VERV  SE 
often  pacing  the  room  with  it  for  hours,  washed  it,  occa- 
sionally, and  took  it  out  for  an  airing  every  Sunday. 

Notwithstanding  all  which  care,  the  little  beggar,  at 
the  end  of  the  time  above  mentioned,  "  pegged  out,"  to 
use  Jimmy's  own  words. 

The  coroner  was  very  severe  on  Jim.  "  If  you  had 
taken  proper  steps,"  he  said,  "  this  child's  life  might 


86  NOVEL   NOTES. 

have  been  preserved."  (He  seemed  to  think  it  would 
have  been  better  if  the  child's  life  had  been  preserved. 
Coroners  have  quaint  ideas.)  "  Why  didn't  you  apply 
to  the  relieving  officer  ?  " 

"  'Cos  I  didn't  want  no  relief,1"  replied  Jim  sullenly. 
"  I  promised  my  mother  it  should  never  go  on  the  par- 
ish, and  it  didn't." 

The  incident  occurred,  very  luckily,  during  the  dead 
season,  and  the  evening  papers  took  the  case  up,  and 
made  rather  a  good  thing  out  of  it.  Jim  became  quite 
a  hero,  I  remember.  Kindhearted  people  wrote  urging 
that  somebody — the  ground  landlord,  or  the  Government, 
or  someone  of  that  sort — ought  to  do  something  for 
him.  And  everybody  abused  the  local  vestry.  I  really 
think  some  benefit  to  Jim  might  have  come  out  of  it  all 
if  only  the  excitement  had  lasted  a  little  longer.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  just  at  its  height  a  spicy  divorce 
case  cropped  up,  and  Jim  was  crowded  out  and  for- 
gotten. 

I  told  the  boys  this  story  of  mine,  after  Jephson  had 
done  telling  his,  and,  when  I  had  finished,  we  found  it 
was  nearly  one  o'clock.  So,  of  course,  it  was  too  late 
to  do  any  more  work  to  the  novel  that  evening. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

|E  held  our  next  business  meeting  on  my  house- 
boat. Brown  was  opposed  at  first  to  my 
going  down  to  this  houseboat  at  all.  He 
thought  that  none  of  us  should  leave  town 
while  the  novel  was  still  on  hand. 

"  Don't  you  agree  with  me,  Jephson  ? "  he  added, 
turning  to  that  ever-smoking  philosopher.  "  Don't  you 
think  it  unwise  for  any  of  us  to  go  away  from  London 
until  this  book  is  finished  and  off  our  minds  ?" 

"  Well,"  growled  Jephson,  without  removing  his  pipe 
from  his  mouth,  "  personally,  I  must  confess  I  should 
like  to  see  the  dear  old  trees  and  fields  once  more  before 
I  die." 

Jephson  never  had  been  enthusiastic  about  this  collab- 
oration scheme.  But  then  enthusiasm  was  not  in  his 
nature. 

MacShaughnassy,  on  the  other  hand,  was  of  opinion 
that  we  should  work  better  on  a  houseboat.  Speaking 
for  himself,  he  said  he  never  felt  more  like  writing  a 
really  great  work  than  when  lying  in  a  hammock  among 
whispering  leaves,  with  the  deep  blue  sky  above  him,  and 
a  tumbler  of  iced  claret  cup  within  easy  reach  of  his 
hand.  Failing  a  hammock,  he  found  a  deck  chair  a 
great  incentive  to  mental  labor.  In  the  interests  of  the 
novel,  he  strongly  recommended  me  to  take  down  with 
me  at  least  one  comfortable  deck  chair,  and  plenty  of 
lemons. 

I  could  not  myself  see  any  reason  why  we  should  not 
87 


88 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


be  able  to  think  as  well  on  a  houseboat  as  anywhere 
else,  and  accordingly  it  was  settled  that  I  should  go  down 
and  establish  myself  upon  the  thing,  and  that  the  others 

should  visit  me 
there  from  time  to 
time,  when  we  would 
sit  round  and  toil. 

This  houseboat 
was  Ethelbertha's 
idea.  We  had  spent 
a  day,  the  summer 
before,  on  one  be- 
longing to  a  friend 
of  mine,  and  she 
had  been  enraptured 
with  the  life.  Every- 
thing was  on  such 
a  delightfully  tiny 
scale.  You  lived  in 
a  tiny  little  room  ; 
you  slept  on  a  tiny 
little  bed,  in  a  tiny, 
tiny  little  bedroom  ;  and  you  cooked  your  little  dinner 
by  a  tiny  little  fire,  in  the  tiniest  little  kitchen  that  ever 
you  did  see.  "  Oh,  it  must  be  lovely,  living  on  a  house- 
boat," said  Ethelbertha,  with  a  gasp  of  ecstasy  ;  "  it  must 
be  like  living  in  a  doll's  house." 

Ethelbertha  was  very  young — ridiculously  young,  as  I 
think  I  have  mentioned  before — in  these  daysof  which  I  am 
writing,  and  the  love  of  dolis,  and  of  the  gorgeous  dresses 
that  dolls  wear,  and  of  the  many-windowed  but  incon- 
veniently arranged  houses  that  dolls  inhabit — or  are  sup- 
posed to  inhabit,  for  as  a  rule  they  seem  to  prefer  sitting 
on  the  roof  with  their  legs  dangling  down  over  the  front 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


89 


door,  which  has  always  appeared  to  me  to  be  unladylike. 
But  then,  of  course,  I  am  no  authority  on  doll  etiquette — 
had  not  yet,  I  think,  quite  departed  from  her.  Nay,  am 
I  not  sure  that  it  had  not  ?  Do  I  not  remember,  years 
later,  peeping  into  a  certain  room,  the  walls  of  which  are 
covered  with  works  of  art  of  a 
character  calculated  to  send  any 
aesthetic  person 
mad,  and  seeing  ^ 
her  sitting  on 
the  floor  before 
a  red  brick  man- 
sion, containing 
two  rooms  and  a 
kitchen  :  and  are 
not  her  hands 
trembling  with 
delight  as  she  ar- 
ranges the  three 
real  tin  plates 
upon  the  dresser  ?  And  does  she  not  knock  at  the  real 
brass  knocker  upon  the  real  front  door  until  it  comes 
off,  and  I  have  to  sit  down  beside  her  on  the  floor  and 
screw  it  on  again  ? 

Perhaps,  however,  it  is  unwise  for  me  to  recall  these 
things,  and  bring  them  forward  thus  in  evidence  against 
her,  for  cannot  she  in  turn  laugh  at  me  ?  Did  not  I 
also  assist  in  the  arrangement  and  appointment  of  that 
house  beautiful  ?  We  differed  on  the  matter  of  the 
drawing-room  carpet,  I  recollect.  Ethelbertha  fancied  a 
dark  blue  velvet,  but  I  felt  sure,  taking  the  wall-paper 
into  consideration,  that  some  shade  of  terra-cotta  would 
harmonize  best.  She  agreed  with  me  in  the  end,  and  we 
manufactured  one  out  of  an  old  chest  protector,  It  had 


9o 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


a  really  charming  effect,  and  gave  a  delightfully  warm 
tone  to  the  room.  The  blue  velvet  we  put  in  the 
kitchen.  I  deemed  this  extravagance,  but  Ethelbertha 
said  that  servants  thought  a  lot  of  a  good  carpet,  and 
that  it  paid  to  humor  them 
in  little  things,  when  prac- 
ticable. 

The  bedroom  had  one  big 
bed   and  a  cot  in  it  :  but  I 


' ETHELBERTH 


could  not  see  where  the  girl 
was  going  to  sleep.  The 
architect  had  overlooked  her 
altogether  :  that  is  so  like 

an  architect.  The  house  also  suffered  from  the  incon- 
venience common  to  residences  of  its  class,  of  possessing 
no  stairs,  so  that  to  move  from  one  room  to  another  it 
was  necessary  to  burst  your  way  up  through  the  ceiling, 
or  else  to  come  outside  and  climb  in  through  a  window  ; 
either  of  which  methods  must  be  fatiguing  when  you 
come  to  do  it  often. 

Apart  from  these  drawbacks,  however,  the  house  was 


NOVEL  NOTES.  91 

one  that  any  doll  agent  would  have  been  justified  in 
describing  as  a  "  most  desirable  family  residence  ";  and 
it  had  been  furnished  with  a  lavishness  that  bordered  on 
positive  ostentation.  In  the  bedroom  there  was  a  wash- 
ing stand,  and  on  the  washing  stand  there  stood  a  jug 
and  basin,  and  in  the  jug  there  was  real  water.  But  all 
this  was  as  nothing.  I  have  known  mere  ordinary, 
middle-class  dolls'  houses  in  which  you  might  find  wash- 
ing-stands and  jugs  and  basins  and  real  water — aye,  and 
even  soap.  But  in  this  abode  of  luxury  there  was  a  real 
towel  ;  so  that  a  body  could  not  only  wash  himself,  but 
wipe  himself  afterward,  and  that  is  a  sensation  that,  as 
all  dolls  know,  can  be  enjoyed  only  in  the  very  first-class 
establishments. 

Then,  in  the  drawing  room,  there  was  a  clock,  which 
would  go  on  ticking  so  long  as  ever  you  continued  to 
shake  it  (it  never  seemed  to  get  tired)  ;  also  a  picture 
and  a  piano,  and  a  book  upon  a  table,  and  a  vase  of 
flowers  that  would  upset  the  moment  you  touched  it, 
just  like  a  real  vase  of  flowers.  Oh,  there  was  style 
about  this  room,  I  can  tell  you. 

But  the  glory  of  the  house  was  its  kitchen.  There 
were  all  things  that  heart  could  desire  in  this  kitchen, 
saucepans  with  lids  that  took  on  and  off,  a  flatiron,  and 
a  rolling-pin.  A  dinner  service  for  three  occupied  about 
half  the  room,  and  what  space  was  left  was  filled  up  by 
the  stove — a  real  stove  !  Think  of  it,  oh  ye  owners  of 
dolls'  houses,  a  stove  in  which  you  could  burn  real  bits 
of  coal,  and  on  which  you  could  boil  real  bits  of  potato 
for  dinner — except  when  people  said  you  mustn't,  be- 
cause it  was  dangerous,  and  took  the  grate  away  from 
you,  and  blew  out  the  fire,  a  thing  that  hampers  a  cook. 

I  never  saw  a  house  more  complete  in  all  its  details. 
Nothing  had  been  overlooked,  not  even  the  family. 


92  NOVEL   XOTES. 

There  it  lay  on  its  back,  just  outside  the  front  door,  proud 
but  calm,  waiting  to  be  put  into  possession.  It  was  not 
an  extensive  family.  It  consisted  of  four — papa  and 
mamma  and  baby  and  the  hired  girl  ;  just  the  family 
for  a  beginner. 

It  was  a  well-dressed  family  too — not  merely  with 
grand  clothes  outside,  covering  a  shameful  condition  of 
things  beneath,  such  as,  alas  !  is  too  often  the  case  in 
doll  society,  but  with  every  article  necessary  and  proper 
to  a  lady  or  gentleman,  down  to  items  that  I  could  not 
mention.  And  all  these  garments,  you  must  know,  could 
be  unfastened  and  taken  off.  I  have  known  dolls — 
stylish  enough  dolls,  to  look  at,  some  of  them — who  have 
been  content  to  go  about  with  their  clothes  gummed  on 
to  them,  and,  in  some  cases,  nailed  on  with  tacks,  which 
I  take  to  be  a  slovenly  and  unhealthy  habit.  But  this 
family  could  be  undressed  in  five  minutes  without  the 
aid  of  either  hot  water  or  a  chisel. 

Not  that  it  was  advisable  from  an  artistic  point  of  view 
that  any  of  them  should.  They  had  not  the  figure  that 
looks  well  in  its  natural  state — none  of  them.  There 
was  a  want  of  fullness  about  them  all.  Besides,  without 
their  clothes,  it  might  have  been  difficult  to  distinguish 
the  baby  from  the  papa,  or  their  maid  from  the  mistress, 
and  thus  domestic  complications  might  have  arisen. 

When  all  was  ready  for  their  reception  we  established 
them  in  their  home.  We  put  as  much  of  the  baby  to 
bed  as  the  cot  would  hold,  and  made  the  papa  and 
mamma  comfortable  in  the  drawing  room,  where  they 
sat  on  the  floor  and  stared  thoughtfully  at  each  other 
across  the  table.  (They  had  to  sit  on  the  floor  because 
the  chairs  were  not  big  enough.)  The  girl  we  placed  in 
the  kitchen,  where  she  leant  against  the  dresser  in  an 
attitude  suggestive  of  drink,  embracing  the  broom  we 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


had  given  her  with  maudlin  affection.  Then  we  lifted 
up  the  house  with  care  and  carried  it  cautiously  into  an- 
other room,  and  with  the  deftness  of  experienced  con- 
spirators, placed  it  at 
the  foot  of  a  small 
bed,  on  the  southwest  _____ 
corner  of  which  an  ab- 
surdly small  somebody  - 
had  hung  an  absurdly 
small  stocking. 

To  return  to  our 
own  doll's  house,  Ethel- 
bertha  and  I  discussing  the  subject 
during  our  return  journey  in  the 
train,  resolved  that,  next  year,  we 
ourselves  would  possess  a  houseboat, 
a  smaller  houseboat,  if  possible, 
than  even  the  one  we  had  just  seen. 
It  should  have  art-muslin  curtains  and  a  flag,  and  the 
flowers  about  it  should  be  wild  roses  and  forget-me-nots. 
I  could  work  all  the  morning  on  the  roof,  with  an  awning 
over  me  to  keep  off  the  sun,  while  Ethelbertha  trimmed 
the  roses  and  made  cake  for  tea  ;  and  in  the  evenings 
we  would  sit  out  on  the  little  deck,  and  Ethelbertha 
would  play  the  guitar  (she  would  begin  learning  it  at 
once),  or  we  could  sit  quiet  and  listen  to  the  nightingales. 

For,  when  you  are  very,  very  young,  you  dream  that 
the  summer  is  all  sunny  days  and  moonlight  nights, 
that  the  wind  blows  always  softly  from  the  west,  and  that 
roses  will  thrive  anywhere.  But,  as  you  grow  older,  you 
grow  tired  of  waiting  for  the  dull  gray  sky  to  break.  So 
you  close  the  door  and  come  in,  and  crouch  over  the  fire, 
wondering  why  the  winds  blow  ever  from  the  east  ;  and 
you  have  given  up  trying  to  rear  roses. 


94  NOVEL  NOTES. 

I  knew  a  little  cottage  girl  who  saved  up  her  money 
for  months  and  months  so  as  to  buy  a  new  frock  in 
which  to  go  to  a  flower  show.  But  the  day  of  the  flower 
show  was  a  wet  day,  so  she  wore  an  old  frock  instead. 
And  all  the  fete  days  for  quite  a  long  while  were  wet 
days,  and  she  feared  she  would  never  have  a  chance  of 
wearing  her  pretty  white  dress.  But  at  last  there  came 
a  fete  day  morning  that  was  bright  and  sunny,  and  then 
the  little  girl  clapped  her  hands  and  ran  upstairs,  and 
took  her  new  frock  (which  had  been  her  "  new  frock  " 
for  so  long  a  time  that  it  was  now  the  oldest  frock  she 
had)  from  the  box  where  it  lay  neatly  folded  between 
lavender  and  thyme,  and  held  it  up,  and  laughed  to  think 
how  nice  she  would  look  in  it. 

But  when  she  went  to  put  it  on,  she  found  that  she  had 
outgrown  it,  and  that  it  was  too  small  for  her  every  way. 
So  she  had  to  wear  a  common  old  frock  after  all. 

Things  happen  that  way,  you  know,  in  this  world. 
There  were  a  boy  and  girl  once  who  loved  each  other 
very  dearly.  But  they  were  both  poor,  so  they  agreed 
to  wait  till  he  had  made  enough  money  for  them  to  live 
comfortably  upon,  and  then  they  would  marry  and  be 
happy.  It  took  him  a  long  while  to  make,  because 
making  money  is  very  slow  work,  and  he  wanted,  while 
he  was  about  it,  to  make  enough  for  them  to  be  very 
happy  upon  indeed.  He  accomplished  the  task  event- 
ually, however,  and  came  back  home  a  wealthy  man. 

Then  they  met  again  in  the  poorly  furnished  parlor 
where  they  had  parted.  But  they  did  not  sit  as  near  to 
each  other  as  of  old.  For  she  had  lived  alone  so  long 
that  she  had  grown  prim  and  old-maidish,  and  she  was 
feeling  vexed  with  him  for  having  dirtied  the  carpet 
with  his  muddy  boots.  And  he  had  worked  so  long 
earning  money  that  he  had  grown  hard  and  cold  like 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


95 


the  money  itself,  and  was  trying  to  think  of  something 
affectionate  to  say  to  her. 

So  for  a  while  they  sat,  one  each  side  of  the  paper 
"  fire-stove  ornament,"  both  wondering  why  they  had 
shed  such  scald- 
ing tears  on  that 
day  they  had 
kissed  each  other 
good-by ;  then 
said  "good-by" 
again,  and  were 
glad. 

There  is  an- 
other tale  with 
much  the  same 

moral  that  I  learnt  at  school  out 
of  a  copy-book.  If  I  remember 
rightly,  it  runs  somewhat  like 

thiS    :  "THEY   MET   AGAIN." 

Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  a  wise  grasshopper  and 
a  foolish  ant.  All  through  the  pleasant  summer  weather 
the  grasshopper  sported  and  played,  gamboling  with  his 
fellows  in  and  out  among  the  sunbeams,  dining  sumptu- 
ously each  day  on  leaves  and  dewdrops,  never  troubling 
about  the  morrow,  singing  ever  his  one  peaceful,  droning 
song. 

Then  there  came  the  cruel  winter,  and  the  grasshopper, 
looking  round,  saw  that  his  friends,  the  flowers,  lay  dead, 
and  knew  thereby  that  his  own  little  span  was  drawing 
near  its  close. 

Then  he  felt  glad  that  he  had  been  so  happy,  and  had 
not  wasted  his  life.  "  It  has  been  very  short,"  said  he  to 
himself ;  "  but  it  has  been  very  pleasant,  and  I  think  I 
have  made  the  best  use  of  it.  I  have  drunk  in  the  sun- 


96  NOVEL  NOTES. 

shine,  I  have  lain  on  the  soft,  warm  air,  I  have  played 
merry  games  in  the  waving  grass,  1  have  tasted  the  juice 
of  the  sweet  green  leaves.  I  have  done  what  I  could. 
I  have  spread  my  wings,  I  have  sung  my  song.  Now  I 
will  thank  God  for  the  sunny  days  that  are  passed,  and 
die." 

Saying  which,  he  crawled  under  a  brown  leaf  and  met 
his  fate  in  the  way  that  all  brave  grasshoppers  should  ; 
and  a  little  bird  that  was  passing  by 
picked  him  up   tenderly  and  buried 
him. 

Now    when    the    foolish    ant   saw 
this,  she  was  greatly  puffed  up  with 
Pharisaical  conceit.     "  How  thankful 
I  ought  to  be,"  said  she,  "  that  I  am 
industrious  and  prudent,  and  not  like 
-         //      this  poor  grasshopper.     While  he  was 
•  flitting  about  from  flower  to  flower, 

enjoying  himself,  I  was  hard  at  work, 

"BURIED  HIM." 

putting  by  against  the  winter.  Now 
he  is  dead  while  I  am  about  to  make  myself  cozy  in  my 
warm  home,  and  eat  all  the  good  things  that  I  have  been 
saving  up." 

But,  as  she  spoke,  the  gardener  came  along  with  his 
spade,  and  leveled  the  hill  where  she  dwelt  to  the 
ground,  and  left  her  lying  dead  amid  the  ruins. 

Then  the  same  kind  little  bird  that  had  buried  the 
grasshopper  came  and  picked  her  out  and  buried  her 
also  ;  and  afterward  he  composed  and  sang  a  song,  the 
burthen  of  which  was  "  Gather  ye  rosebuds  while  ye 
may."  It  was  a  very  pretty  song,  and  a  very  wise  song, 
and  a  man  who  lived  in  those  days,  and  to  whom  the 
birds,  loving  him  and  feeling  that  he  was  almost  one  of 
themselves,  had  taught  their  language,  fortunately  over- 


NOVEL  NOTES.  97 

heard  it  and  wrote  it  down,  so  that  all  may  read  it  to 
this  day. 

Unhappily  for  us,  however,  Fate  is  a  harsh  governess, 
who  has  no  sympathy  with  our  desire  for  rosebuds. 
"  Don't  stop  to  pick  flowers  now,  my  dear/'  she  cries,  in 
her  sharp,  cross  tones,  as  she  seizes  our  arm  and  jerks 
us  back  into  the  roadway  ;  "  we  haven't  time  to-day. 
We  will  come  back  again  to-morrow,  and  you  shall  pick 
them  then." 

And  we  have  to  follow  her,  knowing,  if  we  are  experi- 
enced children,  that  the  chances  are  that  we  shall  never 
come  that  way  again  ;  or  that  if  we  do,  it  will  be  when 
the  roses  are  dead. 

Fate  would  not  hear  of  our  having  a  houseboat  that 
summer — which  was  an  exceptionally  fine  summer — but 
promised  us  that  if  we  were  good  and  saved  up  our 
money  we  should  have  one  next  year  ;  and  Ethelbertha 
and  I,  being  simple-minded,  inexperienced  children, 
were  content  with  the  promise,  and  had  faith  in  its  satis- 
factory fulfillment. 

As  soon  as  we  reached  home,  we  informed  Amenda  of 
our  plan.  The  moment  the  girl  opened  the  door,  Ethel- 
bertha  burst  out  with  : 

"  Oh  !  can  you  swim,  Amenda?" 

"  No,  mum,"  answered  Amenda,  with  entire  absence  of 
curiosity  as  to  why  such  a  question  had  been  addressed 
to  her,  "  I  never  knew  but  one  girl  as  could,  and  she  got 
drowned." 

"  Well,  you'll  have  to  make  haste  and  learn,  then," 
continued  Ethelbertha,  "  because  you  won't  be  able  to 
walk  out  with  your  young  man,  you'll  have  to  swim  out. 
We're  not  going  to  live  in  a  house  any  more.  We're 
going  to  live  on  a.  boat  in  the  middle  of  the  river." 

Ethelbertha's  chief  object  in  life  at  this  period  was  to 


9s 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


surprise  and  shock  Amenda,  and  her  chief  sorrow  that 
she  had  never  succeeded  in  doing  so.  She  had  hoped 
great  things  from  this  announcement,  but  the  girl  re- 
mained unmoved. 
"  Oh,  are  you, 
mum,"  she  re- 
plied ;  and  went 
on  to  speak  of 
other  matters. 

I  believe  the  re- 
sult would  have 
been  precisely  the 
same  if  we  had 
told  her  we  were 
going  to  live  in 
a  balloon. 

I  do  not  know 
how  it  was,  I  am 
sure.  Amenda 
was  always  most 
respectful  in  her 
manner.  But  she 
had  a  knack  of 
making  Ethel- 
bertha  and  my- 
self feel  that  we  were  a  couple  of  children,  playing  at 
being  grown  up  and  married,  and  that  she  was  hum- 
oring us. 

Amenda  stayed  with  us  for  nearly  five  years — until 
the  milkman,  having  saved  up  sufficient  to  buy  a 
"walk"  of  his  own,  had  become  practicable — but  her 
attitude  toward  us  never  changed.  Even  when  we  came 
to  be  really  important  married  people,  the  proprietors  of 
a  "  family,"  it  was  evident  that  she  merely  considered  we 


NOVEL  NOTES.  99 

had  gone  a  step  farther  in  the  game,  and  were  playing 
now  at  being  fathers  and  mothers. 

By  some  subtle  process,  she  contrived  to  imbue  the 
baby  also  with  this  idea.  The  child  never  seemed  to  me 
to  take  either  of  us  quite  seriously.  She  would  play  with 
us,  or  join  with  us  in  light,  frivolous  conversation  ;  but 
when  it  came  to  the  serious  affairs  of  life,  such  as  bath- 
ing or  feeding,  she  preferred  her  nurse. 

Ethelbertha  attempted  to  take  her  out  in  the  peram- 
bulator one  morning,  but  the  child  would  not  hear  of  it 
for  a  moment. 

"  It's  all  right,  baby  dear,"  explained  Ethelbertha 
soothingly.  "  Baby's  going  out  with  mumma  this 
morning." 

"  Oh,  no,  baby  aint,"  was  baby's  rejoinder,  in  effect  if 
not  in  words.  "  Baby  don't  take  a  hand  in  experiments 
— not  this  baby.  I  don't  want  to  be  upset  or  run 
over." 

Poor  Ethel  !  I  shall  never  forget  how  heartbroken 
she  was.  It  was  the  want  of  confidence  that  wounded 
her. 

But  these  are  reminiscences  of  other  days,  having  no 
connection  with  the  days  of  which  I  am — or  should  be — 
writing  ;  and  to  wander  from  one  matter  to  another  is, 
in  a  teller  of  tales,  a  grievous  sin,  and  a  growing  custom 
much  to  be  condemned.  Therefore,  I  will  close  my 
eyes  to  all  other  memories,  and  endeavor  to  see  only 
that  little  white  and  green  houseboat  by  the  ferry,  which 
was  the  scene  of  our  future  collaborations. 

Houseboats  then  were  not  built  to  the  scale  of  Missis- 
sippi steamers,  but  this  boat  was  a  small  one,  even  for 
that  primitive  age.  The  man  from  whom  we  hired  it 
described  it  as  "compact."  The  man  to  whom,  at  the 
end  of  the  first  month,  we  tried  to  sub-let  it,  character. 


100 


NOVEL  MOTES. 


•• 


ized   it  as   "poky."     In   our  letters,   we   traversed  this 
definition.     In  our  hearts,  we  agreed  with  it. 

At  first,  however,  its  size — or,  rather,  its  lack  of  size — 
was  one  of  its  chief  charms  in  Ethelbertha's  eyes.     The 

fact  that  if  you 
got  out  of  bed 
carelessly  you 
were  certain  to 
knock  your  head 
against  the  ceil- 
ing, and  that  it 
was  utterly  im- 
possible for  any 
man  to  put  on 
his  trousers  ex- 
ceptin  thesaloon, 
she  regarded  as  a 
capital  joke. 


self  had  to  take 
a  looking-glass  and  go  upon  the 
roof  to  do  her  back  hair,  she 
considered  less  amusing. 

Amenda  accepted  her  new  sur- 
roundings with  philosophic  indif- 
ference. On  being  informed  that 
what  she  had  mistaken  for  a  linen  press  was  her  bedroom, 
she  remarked  that  there  was  one  advantage  about  it,  and 
that  was,  that  she  could  not  tumble  out  of  bed,  seeing 
there  was  nowhere  to  tumble  ;  and,  on  being  shown  the 
kitchen,  she  observed  that  she  should  like  it  for  two 
things — one  was  that  she  could  sit  in  the  middle  and  reach 
everything  without  getting  up  ;  the  other,  that  nobody 
else  could  come  into  the  apartment  while  she  was  there. 


NOVEL   NOTES.  to  I 

"You  see,  Amenda,"  explained  Ethelbertha,  apolo- 
getically, "  we  shall  really  live  outside." 

"  Yes,  mum,"  answered  Amenda,  "  I  should  say  that 
would  be  the  best  place  to  do  it." 

If  only  we  could  have  lived  more  outside,  the  life 
might  have  been  pleasant  enough,  but  the  weather 
rendered  it  impossible,  six  days  out  of  the  seven,  for  us 
to  do  more  than  look  out  of  the  window  and  feel  thank- 
ful that  we  had  a  roof  over  our  heads. 

I  have  known  wet  summers  before  and  since.  I  have 
learnt  by  many  bitter  experiences  the  danger  and 
foolishness  of  leaving  the  shelter  of  London  any  time 
between  the  ist  of  May  and  the3ist  of  October.  Indeed, 
the  country  is  always  associated  in  my  mind  with  recol- 
lections of  long,  weary  days  passed  in  the  pitiless  rain, 
and  sad,  dreary  evenings  spent  in  other  people's  clothes. 
But  never  have  I  known,  and  never,  I  pray  night  and 
morning,  may  I  know  again,  such  a  summer  as  the  one 
we  lived  through  (though  none  of  us  expected  to)  on 
that  confounded  houseboat. 

In  the  morning,  we  would  be  awakened  by  the  rain's 
forcing  its  way  through  the  window  and  wetting  the  bed, 
and  would  get -up  and  mop  out  the  saloon.  After  break- 
fast, I  would  try  to  work,  but  the  beating  of  the  hail 
upon  the  roof  just  over  my  head  would  drive  every  idea 
out  of  my  brain,  and,  after  a  wasted  hour  or  two,  I 
would  fling  down  my  pen  and  hunt  up  Ethelbertha,  and 
we  would  put  on  our  mackintoshes  and  take  our  umbrel- 
las and  go  out  for  a  row.  At  midday  we  would  return 
and  put  on  some  dry  clothes,  and  sit  down  to  dinner. 

In  the  afternoon  the  storm  generally  freshened  up  a 
bit,  and  we  were  kept  pretty  busy  rushing  about  with 
towels  and  cloths,  trying  to  prevent  the  water  from 
coming  into  the  rooms  and  swamping  us.  During  tea- 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


time,  the  saloon  was  usually  illuminated  by  forked  light- 
ning. The  evenings  we  spent  in  baling  out  the  boat, 
after  which  we  took  it  in  turns  to  go  into  the  kitchen 
and  warm  ourselves.  At  eight  we  supped,  and  from 
then  until  it  was  time  to  go  to  bed  we  sat  wrapped  up  in 
rugs,  listening  to  the  roaring  of  the  thunder  and  the 
howling  of  the  wind,  and  the  lashing  of  the  waves,  and 
wondering  whether  the  boat  would  hold  out  through  the 
night. 

Friends  would  come  down  to  spend  the  day  with  us — 
elderly  irritable  people,  fond  of  warmth  and  comfort ; 
people  who  did  not,  as  a  rule,  hanker  after  jaunts,  even 
under  the  most  favorable  conditions  ;  but  who  had  been 
persuaded  by  our  silly  talk  that  a  day  on  the  river 
would  be  to  them  like  a  Saturday  to  Monday  in  Para- 
dise. Poor  creatures  ! 
They  would  generally 
return  home,  looking  as 

mif  they  had  had  a  day  /'// 
|p|,       the  river. 
9f    *l|O  They     would     arrive 

—^^^jJMB  If  soaked  ;.  and  we  would 
shut  them  up  in  different 
bunks,  and  leave  them 
to  strip  themselves  and 
put  on  things  of  Ethel- 
bertha's  or  of  mine.  But 
Ethel  and  I,  in  those 
days,  were  slim,  so  that 
stout  middle-aged  peo- 
ple in  our  clothes 
neither  looked  well  nor  felt  happy. 

Upon  their  emerging,   we  would  take  them  into  the 
saloon  and  try  to  entertain  them  by  telling  them  what 


"  STOUT,  MIDDLE- 
AGED  PEOPLE  IN 
OUR  CLOTHES." 


NOVEL   NOTES.  103 

we  had  intended  to  do  with  them  had  the  day  been  fine. 
But  their  answers  were  short,  and  occasionally  snappy, 
and  after  a  while  the  conversation  would  flag,  and  we 
would  sit  round  reading  last  week's  newspapers  and 
coughing. 

The  moment  their  own  clothes  were  dry  (we  lived  in  a 
perpetual  atmosphere  of  steaming  clothes)  they  would 
insist  upon  leaving  us,  which  seemed  to  me  discourteous 
after  all  that  we  had  done  for  them,  and  would  dress 
themselves  once  more  and  start  off  home,  and  get  wet 
again  before  they  got  there. 

We  would  generally  receive  a  letter  a  few  days  after- 
ward, written  by  some  relative,  informing  us  that  both 
patients  were  doing  as  well  as  could  be  expected,  and 
promising  to  send  us  a  card  for  the  funeral  in  case  of  a 
relapse. 

Our  chief  recreation,  our  sole  consolation,  during  the 
long  weeks  of  our  imprisonment,  was  to  watch  from  our 
windows  the  pleasure-seekers  passing  by  in  small  open 
boats,  and  to  reflect  what  an  awful  day  they  had  had,  or 
were  going  to  have,  as  the  case  might  be. 

In  the  forenoon,  they  would  head  up  stream — young 
men  with  their  sweethearts  ;  nephews  taking  out  their 
rich  old  aunts  ;  husbands  and  wives  (some  of  them  pairs, 
some  of  them  odd  ones)  ;  stylish-looking  girls  with 
cousins  ;  energetic-looking  men  with  dogs  ;  high-class 
silent  parties ;  low-class  noisy  parties ;  quarrelsome 
family  parties — boatload  after  boatload  they  went  by, 
wet,  but  still  hopeful,  pointing  out  bits  of  blue  sky  to 
each  other. 

In  the  evening,  they  would  return,  drenched  and 
gloomy,  saying  disagreeable  things  to  one  another. 

That  summer,  I  am  convinced,  was  responsible  for  the 
breaking  off  of  many  an  engagement,  and  the  abandon- 


104 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


ment,  maybe,  of  one  or  two  elopements.  A  wet  day  on 
the  river  affords  lovers  an  insight  into  each  other's 
character  that  is  not  otherwise  easily  obtainable.  Ange- 
lina learns  that  Edwin's  language  is  not  so  limited  as 
she  had  imagined,  and  Edwin  perceives  that  Angelina's 
smile  is  not  the  fixture  he  had  thought  it. 

One  couple,  and  one  couple  only,  out  of  the  many 
hundreds  that  passed  under  our  review,  came  back  from 
the  ordeal  with  pleasant  faces.  He  was  rowing  hard 


"  ROWING   HARD   AND  SINGING." 

and  singing,  with  a  handkerchief  tied  round  his  head  to 
keep  his  hat  on,  and  she  was  laughing  at  him,  while  try- 
ing to  hold  up  an  umbrella  with  one  hand  and  steer  with 
the  other. 

There  are  but  two  explanations  to  account  for  people 
being  jolly  on  the  river  in  the  rain.  The  one  I  dismissed 
as  being  both  uncharitable  and  improbable.  The  other 
was  creditable  to  the  human  race,  and,  adopting  it,  I  took 
off  my  cap  to  this  damp  but  cheerful  pair  as  they  went 
by.  They  answered  with  a  wave  of  the  hand,  and  I 
stood  looking  after  them  till  they  disappeared  in  the 
mist. 

I  am  inclined   to  think  that  those,  young   people,  if 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


they  be  still  alive,  are  happy.  Maybe  Fortune  has  been 
kind  to  them,  or  maybe  she  has  not,  but  in  either  event 
they  are,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  happier  than  are  most 
people. 

Now  and  again  the  daily  tornado  would  rage  with 
such  fury  as  to  defeat  its  own  purpose  by  prematurely 
exhausting  itself,  and  thus  being  unable,  toward  evening, 
to  come  up  to  time  ;  and,  on  these  rare  occasions,  we 
would  sit  out  on  the  deck,  and  enjoy  the  unwonted 
luxury  of  fresh  air. 

I    remember  well   those   few  pleasant  evenings  ;  the 

river,    luminous    with          ^ 

the  drowned  light,  the 
dark  banks  where  the 
night  lurked.the  storm- 
tossed  sky,  jeweled 
here  and  there  with 
stars. 

It  was  delightful  not 
to  hear  for  an  hour  or 
so  the  sullen  threshing 
of  the  rain  ;  but  to 
listen  to  the  leaping 
of  the  fishes,  or  the  soft 
swirl  raised  by  some 
water-rat,  swimming 
stealthily  among  the 
rushes,  or  the  restless 
twitterings  of  the  few 
still  wakeful  birds. 

An       Old      Corncrake        »  AN  OLU  CORNCRAKE  LIVED  NEAR  us." 

lived  near  to    us,  and 

the  way  he  used  to  disturb  all  the  other  birds,  and  keep 

them  from  going  to  sleep,  was  shameful.     Amenda,  who 


106  NOVEL   NOTES. 

was  town  bred,  mistook  him  at  first  for  one  of  those 
cheap  alarm  clocks,  and  wondered  who  was  winding  him 
up,  and  why  they  went  on  doing  it  all  night  ;  and, 
above  all,  why  they  didn't  oil  him. 

He  would  begin  his  unhallowed  performance  about 
dusk,  just  as  every  respectable  bird  was  preparing  to 
settle  down  for  the  night.  A  family  of  thrushes  had 
their  nest  a  few  yards  from  his  stand,  and  they  used  to 
get  perfectly  furious  with  him. 

"  There's  that  fool  at  it  again,"  the  female  thrush 
would  say  ;  "  why  can't  he  do  it  in  the  daytime  if  he 
must  do  it  at  all  ? "  (She  spoke,  of  course,  in  twitters, 
but  I  am  confident  the  above  is  a  correct  translation.) 

After  a  while,  the  young  thrushes  would  wake  up  and 
begin  chirping,  and  then  the  mother  would  get  madder 
than  ever. 

"  Can't  you  say  something  to  him  ? "  she  would  cry 
indignantly  to  her  husband.  "  How  do  you  think  the 
children  can  get  to  sleep,  poor  things,  with  that  hideous 
row  going  on  all  night?  Might  just  as  well  be  living  in 
a  saw-mill." 

Thus  adjured,  the  male  thrush  would  put  his  head 
over  the  nest,  and  call  out  in  a  nervous,  apologetic 
manner  : 

"  I  say,  you  know,  you  there,  I  wish  you  wouldn't 
mind  being  quiet  a  bit.  My  wife  says  she  can't  get  the 
children  to  sleep.  It's  too  bad,  you  know,  'pon  my  word 
it  is." 

"  Gor  on,"  the  corncrake  would  answer  surlily. 
"  You  keep  your  wife  herself  quiet  ;  that's  enough  for 
you  to  do."  And  on  he  would  go  again  worse  than 
before. 

Then  a  mother  blackbird,  from  a  little  further  off, 
would  join  in  the  fray. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  107 

"  Ah,  it's  a  good  hiding  he  wants,  not  a  talking  to. 
And  if  I  was  a  cock,  I'd  give  it  him."  (This  remark 
would  be  made  in  a  tone  of  withering  contempt,  and 
would  appear  to  bear  reference  to  some  previous  dis- 
cussion.) 

"  You  are  quite  right,  ma'am,"  Mrs.  Thrush  would 
reply.  "  That's  what  I  tell  my  husband,  but  "  (with  a 
rising  inflection,  so  that  every  lady  in  the  plantation 
might  hear)  "he  wouldn't  move  himself,  bless  you — no, 
not  if  I  and  the  children  were  to  die  before  his  eyes  for 
want  of  sleep." 

"  Ah,  he  ain't  the  only  one,  my  dear,"  the  blackbird 
would  pipe  back,  "  they're  all  alike."  Then  in  a  voice 
more  of  sorrow  than  of  anger,  "  But  there,  it  aint  their 
fault,  I  suppose,  poor  things.  If  you  aint  got  the  spirit 
of  a  bird  you  can't  help  yourself." 

I  would  strain  my  ears  at  this  point  to  hear  if  the 
male  blackbird  was  moved  at  all  by  these  taunts,  but  the 
only  sound  I  could  ever  detect  coming  from  his  neigh- 
borhood was  that  of  palpably  exaggerated  snoring. 

By  this  time,  the  whole  glade  would  be  awake,  ex- 
pressing views  concerning  that  corncrake  that  might 
have  wounded  a  less  callous  nature. 

"  Blow  me  tight,  Bill,"  some  vulgar  little  hedge- 
sparrow  would  chirp  out,  in  the  midst  of  the  hubbub, 
"if  I  don't  believe  the  gent  thinks  'e's  a-singing." 

"  'Taint  'is  fault,"  Bill  would  reply,  with  mock  sym- 
pathy. "  Somebody's  put  a  penny  in  the  slot,  and  'e 
can't  stop  'isself." 

Irritated  by  the  laugh  that  this  would  call  forth  from 
the  younger  birds,  the  corncrake  would  exert  himself  to 
be  more  objectionable  than  ever,  and,  as  a  means  to  this 
end,  would  commence  giving  his  marvelous  imitation  of 
the  sharpening  of  a  rusty  saw  by  a  steel  file. 


loS 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


But  at  this  an  old  crow,  not  to  be  trifled  with,  would 
cry  out  angrily  : 

"Stop  that,  now.  If  I  come  down  to  you  I'll  peck 
your  cranky  head  off,  I  will." 

And  then  would  follow  silence  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  after  which  the  whole  thing  would  begin  again. 


CHAPTER   V. 

[ROWN  and  MacShaugnassy  came  down  to- 
gether on  the  Saturday  afternoon  ;  and,  as 
soon  as  they  had  dried  themselves,  and  had 
had  some  tea,  we  settled  down  to  work. 

Jephson  had  written  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  be 
with  us  until  late  in  the  evening,  and  Brown  proposed 
that  we  should  occupy  ourselves  until  his  arrival  with 
plots. 

"  Let  each  of  us,"  said  he,  "  sketch  out  a  plot.  After- 
ward, we  can  compare  them,  and  select  the  best." 

This  we  proceeded  to  do.  The  plots  themselves  I 
forget  ;  but  I  remember  that  at  the  subsequent  judging 
each  man  selected  his  own,  and  became  so  indignant  at 
the  bitter  criticism  to  which  it  was  subjected  by  the 
other  two  that  he  tore  it  up  ;  and  for  the  next  half 
hour  we  sat  and  smoked  in  silence. 

There  was  a  time,  when  I  was  very  young,  when  I 
yearned  to  know  other  people's  opinion  of  me  and  all 
my  works  ;  now,  my  chief  aim  is  to  avoid  hearing  it. 
In  those  days,  had  anyone  told  me  there  was  half  a  line 
about  myself  in  a  newspaper,  I  should  have  tramped 
London  to  obtain  that  publication.  Now,  when  I  see  a 
column  headed  with  my  name,  I  hurriedly  fold  up  the 
paper  and  put  it  away  from  me,  subduing  my  natural 
curiosity  to  read  it  by  saying  to  myself,  "Why  should 
you  ?  It  will  only  upset  you  for  the  day." 

In  my  cubhood,  I  possessed  a  friend.  Other  friends 
have  come  into  my  life  since — very  dear  and  precious 


no  NOVEL   NOTES. 

friends — but  they  have  none  of  them  been  to  me  quite 
what  this  friend  was.  Because  he  was  my  first  friend, 
and  we  lived  together  in  a  world  that  was  much  bigger 
that  this  world — more  full  of  joy  and  of  grief  ;  and,  in 
that  world,  we  loved  and  hated  deeper  than  we  love  and 
hate  in  this  smaller  world  that  I  have  come  to  dwell  in 
since. 

He  also  had  the  very  young  man's  craving  to  be  criti- 
cised, and  we  made  it  our  custom  to  oblige  each  other. 
We  did  not  know  then  that  what  we  meant,  when  we 
asked  for  "  criticism,"  was  encouragement.  We  thought 
that  we  were  strong — one  does  at  the  beginning  of  the 
battle — and  that  we  could  bear  to  hear  the  truth. 

Accordingly,  each  one  pointed  out  to  the  other  one 
his  errors,  and  this  task  kept  us  both  so  busy  that  we 
had  never  time  to  say  a  word  of  praise  to  one  another. 
That  we  each  had  a  high  opinion  of  the  other's  talents  I 
am  convinced,  but  our  heads  were  full  of  silly  saws.  We 
said  to  ourselves — "There  are  many  who  will  praise  a 
man ;  it  is  only  his  friend  who  will  tell  him  of  his 
faults."  Also,  we  said — "  No  man  sees  his  own  short- 
comings, but  when  these  are  pointed  out  to  him  by 
another  he  is  grateful,  and  proceeds  to  mend  them."* 

As  we  came  to  know  the  world  better,  we  learnt  the 
fallacy  of  these  ideas.  But  then  it  was  too  late,  for  the 
mischief  had  been  done. 

When  one  of  us  had  written  anything,  he  would  read 
it  to  the  other,  and  when  he  had  finished  he  would  say, 
"  Now,  tell  me  what  you  think  of  it — frankly  and  as  a 
friend." 

Those  were  his  words.  But  his  thoughts,  though  he 
may  not  have  known  them,  were  : 

"  Tell  me  it  is  clever  and  good,  my  friend,  even  if  you 
do  not  think  so.  The  world  is  very  cruel  to  those  that 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


lit 


have  not  yet  conquered  it,  and,  though  we  keep  a  care- 
less face,  our  young  hearts  are  scored  with  wrinkles. 
Often  we  grow  weary  and  fainthearted.  Is  it  not  so,  my 


X 


friend  ?  No  one  has  faith  in  us,  and  in  our  dark  hours 
we  doubt  ourselves.  You  are  my  comrade.  You  know 
what  of  myself  I  have  put  into  this  thing  that  to  others 
will  be  but  an  idle  half  hour's  reading.  Tell  me  it  is 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


good,  my  friend.     Put  a  little   heart   into  me,  I  pray 
you." 

But  the  other,  full  of  the  lust  of  criticism,  which  is 
civilization's  substitute  for  cruelty,  would  answer  more 
in  frankness  than  in  friendship.  Then  he  who  had 
written  would  flush  angrily,  and  scornful  words  would 
pass. 

One  evening,  he  read  me  a  play  he  had  written.  There 
was  much  that  was  good  in  it,  but  there  were  also  faults 
(there  are  in  some  plays),  and  these  I  seized  upon  and 
made  merry  over.  I  could  hardly  have  dealt  out  to  the 

piece  more  unneces- 
sary bitterness  had  I 
been  a  professional 
critic. 

As  soon  as  I  paused 
from  my  sport  he  rose, 
and,  taking  his  manu- 
script from  the  table, 
tore  it  in  two,  and 
flung  it  in  the  fire — he 
was  but  a  very  young 
man,  you  must  remem- 
ber— and  then,  stand- 
ing before  me  with  a 
white  face,  told  me, 
unsolicited,  his  opinion 
of  me  and  of  my  art. 
After  which  double 
event,  it  is  perhaps 
••AND  FUNG  IT  IN  THE  FIRE  "  needless  to  say  that  we 

parted  in  hot  anger. 

I  did  not  see  him  again  for  years.  The  streets  of  life 
are  very  crowded,  and  if  we  loose  each  other's  hands  we 


NOVEL  NOTES.  113 

are  soon  hustled  far  apart.  When  I  did  next  meet  him 
it  was  by  accident. 

I  had  left  the  Whitehall  Rooms  after  a  public  dinner, 
and,  glad  of  the  cool  night  air,  was  strolling  home  by 
the  Embankment.  A  man,  slouching  along  under  the 
trees,  paused  as  I  overtook  him. 

"  You  couldn't  oblige  me  with  a  light,  could  37ou, 
guv'nor  ? "  he  said.  The  voice  sounded  strange,  coming 
from  the  figure  that  it  did. 

I  struck  a  match  and  held  it  out  to  him,  shaded  by  my 
hands.  As  the  faint  light  illumined  his  face,  I  started 
back  and  let  the  match  fall. 

"  Harry  !  " 

He  answered  with  a  short,  dry  laugh.  "  I  didn't  know 
it  was  you,"  he  said,  "  or  I  shouldn't  have  stopped  you." 

"  How  has  it  come  to  this,  old  fellow  ? "  I  asked,  laying 
my  hand  upon  his  shoulder.  His  coat  was  unpleasantly 
greasy,  and  I  drew  my  hand  away  again  as  quickly  as 
I  could  and  tried  to  wipe  it  covertly  upon  my  handker- 
chief. 

"Oh,  it's  a  long  story,"  he  answered  carelessly,  "and 
too  conventional  to  be  worth  telling.  Some  of  us  go  up, 
you  know.  Some  of  us  go  down.  You're  doing  pretty 
well,  I  hear." 

"  I  suppose  so,'"  I  replied  ;  "  I've  climbed  a  few  feet 
up  a  greasy  pole,  and  am  trying  to  stick  there.  But  it  is 
of  you  I  want  to  talk.  Can't  I  do  anything  for  you  ?  " 

We  were  passing  under  a  gas-lamp  at  the  moment. 
He  thrust  his  face  forward  close  to  mine,  and  the  light 
fell  full  and  pitilessly  upon  it. 

"  Do  I  look  like  a  man  you  could  do  anything  for  ? " 
he  said. 

We  walked  on  in  silence  side  by  side,  I  casting  about 
for  words  that  might  seize  hold  of  him. 


it4  MOV  EL  UOT&&. 

"  You  needn't  worry  about  me,"  he  continued,  after 
a  while,  "  I'm  comfortable  enough.  We  take  life  easy 
down  here  where  I  am.  We've  no  disappointments." 

"  Why  did  you  give  up  like  a  weak  coward  ? "  I  burst 
out  angrily.  "You  had  talent.  You  would  have  won 
with  ordinary  perseverance." 

"  Maybe,"  he  replied,  in  the  same  even  tone  of  indif- 
ference. "I suppose  I  hadn't  the  grit.  I  think  if  some- 
body had  believed  in  me  it  might  have  helped  me.  But 
nobody  did,  and  at  last  I  lost  belief  in  myself.  And 
when  a  man  loses  that,  he's  like  a  balloon  with  the  gas 
let  out." 

I  listened  to  his  words  with  indignation  and  astonish- 
ment. "  Nobody  believed  in  you  !  "  I  repeated.  "  Why, 
/  always  believed  in  you,  you  know  that.  I " 

Then  I  paused,  remembering  our  "candid  criticism  " 
of  one  another. 

"  Did  you  ?  "  he  replied  quietly.  "  I  never  heard  you 
say  so.  Good-night." 

In  the  course  of  our  Strandward  walking  we  had 
come  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  Savoy,  and,  as  he 
spoke,  he  disappeared  down  one  of  the  dark  turnings 
thereabouts. 

I  hastened  after  him,  calling  him  by  name,  but  though 
I  heard  his  quick  steps  before  me  for  a  little  way,  they 
were  soon  swallowed  up  in  the  sound  of  other  steps,  and, 
when  I  reached  the  square  in  which  the  chapel  stands, 
I  had  lost  all  trace  of  him. 

A  policeman  was  standing  by  the  churchyard  railings, 
and  of  him  I  made  inquiries. 

"  What  sort  of  a  gent  was  he,  sir  ?  "  questioned  the 
man. 

"  A  tall,  thin  gentleman,  very  shabbily  dressed — might 
be  mistaken  for  a  tramp." 


NOVEL  NOTES.  1 15 

"  Ah,  there's  a  good  many  of  that  sort  living  in 
this  town,"  replied  the  man.  "  I'm  afraid  you'll  have 
some  difficulty  in  finding  him." 

Thus  for  a  second  time  had  I  heard  his  footsteps  die 
away,  knowing  I  should  never  listen  for  their  drawing 
near  again. 

I  wondered  as  I  walked  on — I  have  wondered  before 
and  since — whether  Art,  even  with  a  capital  A,  is  quite 
worth  all  the  suffering  that  is  inflicted  in  her  behalf — 
whether  she  and  we  are  better  for  all  the  scorning  and 
the  sneering,  all  the  envying  and  the  hating  that  is  done 
in  her  name. 

Jephson  arrived  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  ferryboat. 
We  were  made  acquainted  with  this  fact  by  having  our 
heads  bumped  against  the  sides  of  the  saloon. 

Somebody  or  other  always  had  their  head  bumped 
whenever  the  ferryboat  arrived.  It  was  a  heavy  and 
cumbersome  machine,  and  the  ferry-boy  was  not  a  good 
punter.  He  admitted  this  frankly,  which  was  creditable 
of  him.  But  he  made  no  attempt  to  improve  himself ; 
that  is  where  he  was  wrong.  His  method  was  to  arrange 
the  punt  before  starting  in  a  line  with  the  point  toward 
which  he  wished  to  proceed,  and  then  push  hard,  with- 
out  ever  looking  behind  him,  until  something  suddenly 
stopped  him.  This  was  sometimes  the  bank,  sometimes 
another  boat,  occasionally  a  steamer,  from  six  to  a  dozen 
times  a  day  our  riparian  dwelling.  That  he  never 
succeeded  in  staving  the  houseboat  in  speaks  highly 
for  the  man  who  built  her. 

One  day  he  came  down  upon  us  with  a  tremendous 
crash.  Amenda  was  walking  along  the  passage  at  the 
moment,  and  the  result  to  her  was  that  she  received  a 
violent  blow  first  on  the  left  side  of  her  head  and  then 
on  the  right. 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


She  was  accustomed  to  accept  one  bump  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  to  regard  it  as  an  intimation  from  the  boy 
that  he  had  come  ;  but  this  double  knock  annoyed  her  ; 
so  much  "style  "  was  out  of  place  in  a  mere  ferry-boy. 
Accordingly,  she  went  out  to  him  in  a  state  of  high 
indignation. 

"  What  do  you  think  you  are  ?  "  she  cried,  balancing 
accounts  by  boxing  his  ears  first  on  one  side  and  then  on 
,v  »  the  other.     "  A  torpedo  !     What 

are  you  doing  here  at  all  ?    What 
do  you  want  ?" 

"  I  don't  want  nothin'/'  ex- 
plained the  boy,  rubbing  his  head ; 
"  I've  brought  a  gent  down." 

"  A  gent ! "  said  Amenda,  look- 
ing round,  but  seeing  no  one. 
"  What  gent  ? " 

"  A  stout  gent  in  a  straw  'at," 
answered  the  boy,  staring  round 
him  bewilderedly. 

"  Well,  where  is  he  ?  "  asked 
Amenda. 

"I  dunno,"  replied  the  boy,  in 
an  awed  voice  ;  "  'e  was  a-stand- 
in'  there,  at  the  other  end  of  the 
punt,  a-smokin'  a  cigar." 

Just  then  a  head  appeared 
above  the  water,  and  a  spent 
but  infuriated  swimmer  struggled  up  between  the  house- 
boat and  the  bank. 

"  Oh,  there  'e  is  !  "  cried  the  boy  delightedly,  evidently 
much  relieved  at  this  satisfactory  solution  of  the  mystery  ; 
"  'e  must  ha'  tumbled  off  the  punt." 

"  You're  quite  right,  my  lad,  that's  just  what  he  did 


BOXED    HIS   EARS. 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


sn;iv,r;i.ED  UP. 


do,  and  there's  your  fee  for  assisting  him  to  do  it."  Say- 
ing which,  my  dripping  friend,  who  had  now  scrambled 
upon  deck,  leant  over,  and  following  Amenda's  excellent 
example,  expressed  his  feelings 
upon  the  boy's  head. 

There  was  one  comforting  re- 
flection about  the  transaction  as 
a  whole,  and  that  was  that  the 
ferry-boy  had  at  last  received  a 
fit  and  proper  reward  for  his  ser- 
vices. I  had  often  felt  inclined 
to  give  him  something  myself. 
I  think  he  was,  without  exception, 
the  most  clumsy  and  stupid  boy 
I  have  ever  come  across  ;  and 
that  is  saying  a  good  deal. 

His  mother  undertook  that  for 
three  and  sixpence  a  week  he  should  "make  himself 
generally  useful "  to  us  for  a  couple  of  hours  every 
morning. 

Those  were  the  old  lady's  very  words,  and  I  repeated 
them  to  Amenda  when  I  introduced  the  boy  to  her. 

"  This  is  James,  Amenda,"  I  said  ;  "  he  will  come 
down  here  every  morning  at  seven,  and  bring  us  our 
milk  and  the  letters,  and  from  then  till  nine  he  will 
make  himself  generally  useful." 

Amenda  took  stock  of  him  : 

"  It  will  be  a  change  of  occupation  for  him,  sir,  I 
should  say,  by  the  look  of  him,"  she  remarked. 

After  that,  whenever  some  more  than  usually  stirring 
crash  or  blood-curdling  bump  would  cause  us  to  leap 
from  our  seats  and  cry :  "  What  on  earth  has  hap- 
pened ?"  Amenda  would  reply  :  "  Oh,  it's  only  James, 
mum,  making  himself  generally  useful." 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


Whatever  he  lifted  he  let  fall ;  whatever  he  touched 
he  upset  ;  whatever  he  came  near — that  was  not  a  fix- 
ture— he  knocked  over  ;  if  it  was  a  fixture  it  knocked 
him  over.  This  was  not  carelessness  ;  it  seemed  to  be  a 
natural  gift.  Never  in  his  life,  I  am  convinced,  had  he 
carried  a  bucketful  of  anything  anywhere  without  tum- 
bling over  it  before  he  got  there.  One  of  his  duties  was 
to  water  the  flowers  on  the  roof.  Fortunately — for  the 
flowers — Nature,  that  summer,  stood  drinks  with  a  lavish- 
ness  sufficient  to  satisfy  the 
mostconfirmed  vegetable  toper; 
otherwise  every  plant  on  our 
boat  would  have  died  from 
drought.  Never  one  drop  of 
water  did  they  receive  from 
him.  He  was  forever  taking 
them  water,but  he  never  arrived 
there  with  it.  As  a  rule  he  upset 
^  the  pail  before  he  got  it  on  to 
/  the  boat  at  all,  and  this  was  the 
'  best  thing  that  could  happen, 
because  then  the  water  simply 
h  went  back  into  the  river,  and 
did  no  harm  to  anyone.  Some- 
times, however,  he  would  suc- 
ceed in  landing  it,  and  then  the 
chances  were  that  he  would  spill 
it  over  the  deck  or  into  the 
passage.  Now  and  again,  he 
would  get  halfway  up  the  ladder  before  the  accident 
occurred.  Twice  he  nearly  reached  the  top  ;  and  once 
he  actually  did  gain  the  roof.  What  happened  there  on 
that  memorable  occasion  will  never  be  known.  The  boy 
himself,  when  picked  up,  could  explain  nothing.  It  is 


NOVEL  NOTES.  119 

supposed  that  he  lost  his  head  with  the  pride  of  the 
achievement,  and  essayed  feats  that  neither  his  previous 
training  nor  his  natural  abilities  justified  him  in  attempt- 
ing. However  that  may  be,  the  fact  remains  that  the 
main  body  of  the  water  came  down  the  kitchen  chimney  ; 
and  that  the  boy  and  the  empty  pail  arrived  together  on 
deck  before  they  knew  they  had  started. 

When  he  could  find  nothing  else  to  damage,  he  would 
go  out  of  his  way  to  upset  himself.  He  could  not  be 
sure  of  stepping  from  his  own  punt  on  to  the  boat  with 
safety.  As  often  as  not,  he  would  catch  his  foot  in  the 
chain  or  the  punt-pole,  and  arrive  on  his  chest. 

Amenda  used  to  condole  with  him.  "  Your  mother 
ought  to  be  ashamed  of  herself,"  I  heard  her  telling  him 
one  morning  ;  "  she  could  never  have  taught  you  to 
walk.  What  you  want  is  a  go-cart." 

He  was  a  willing  lad,  but  his  stupidity  was  super- 
natural. A  comet  appeared  in  the  sky  that  year,  and 
everybody  was  talking  about  it.  One  day  he  said  to 
me  : 

"There's  a  comet  coming,  aint  there,  sir?"  He 
talked  about  it  as  though  it  were  a  circus. 

"Coming!"  I  answered,  "it's  come.  Haven't  you 
seen  it  ?  " 

"  No,  sir." 

"  Oh,  well,  you  have  a  look  for  it  to-night.  It's  worth 
seeing." 

"  Yees,  sir,  I  should  like  to  see  it.  It's  got  a  tail,  aint 
it,  sir  ?" 

"  Yes,  a  very  fine  tail." 

"  Yees,  sir  ;  they  said  it  'ad  a  tail.  Where  do  you  go 
to  see  it,  sir  ?  " 

"  Go  !  You  don't  want  to  go  anywhere.  You'll  see 
it  in  your  own  garden  at  ten  o'clock," 


120  NOVEL  NOTES. 

He  thanked  me,  and,  tumbling  over  a  sack  of  potatoes, 
plunged  head  foremost  into  his  punt  and  departed. 
Next  morning,  I  asked  him  if  he  had  seen  the  comet. 
"No,  sir,  I  couldn't  see  it  anywhere." 
"  Did  you  look  ?  " 
"  Yees,  sir.     I  looked  a  long  time." 
"  How  on  earth  did  you  manage  to  miss  it,  then  ?"     I 
exclaimed  ;  "  it  was  a  clear  enough  night.     Where  did 
you  look  ?  " 

"  In  our  garden,  sir.     Where  you  told  me." 
"Whereabouts  in  the  garden?"  chimed  in  Amenda, 
who  happened  to  be  standing  by  ;  "  under  the  goose- 
berry bushes  ?  " 

"  Yees  —  everywhere." 

That  is  what  he  had  done  :  he  had  taken  the  stable 
lantern  and  searched  the  garden  for  it. 

But  the  day  when  he  broke  even  his  own  record  for 
foolishness  happened  about  three 
weeks     later.       MacShaughnassy 
was  staying  with  us  at  the 
time,  and  on  the  Friday 
evening      he 
mixed    us    a 
salad,     ac- 
cording to  a 


LOOKING    FOR    A    COMET. 


him  by  his  aunt.  On  the  Saturday  morning,  everybody 
was,  of  course,  very  ill.  Everybody  always  is  very  ill 
after  partaking  of  any  dish  prepared  by  MacShaughnassy. 
Some  people  attempt  to  explain  this  fact  by  talking  glibly 
of  "  cause  and  effect."  MacShaughnassy  maintains  that 
it  is  simply  coincidence. 

"  How  do  you   know,"  he  says,  "  that  you  wouldn't 
have  been  ill  if  you  hadn't  eaten  any  ?    You're  queer 


NOVEL  NOTES.  121 

enough  now,  anyone  can  see,  and  I'm  very  sorry  for  you  ; 
but,  for  all  that  you  can  tell,  if  you  hadn't  eaten  any  of 
that  stuff,  you  might  have  been  very  much  worse — per- 
haps dead.  In  all  probability,  it  has  saved  your  life." 
And  for  the  rest  of  the  day  he  assumes  toward  you 
the  attitude  of  a  man  who  has  dragged  you  from  the 
grave. 

The  moment  Jimmy  arrived  I  seized  hold  of  him. 

"  Jimmy,"  I  said,  "you  must  rush  off  to  the  chemist's 
immediately.  Don't  stop  for  anything.  Tell  him  to 
give  you  something  for  colic — the  result  of  vegetable 
poisoning.  It  must  be  something  very  strong,  and 
enough  for  four.  Don't  forget,  something  to  counteract 
the  effects  of  vegetable  poisoning.  Hurry  up,  or  it  may 
be  too  late." 

My  excitement  communicated  itself  to  the  boy.  He 
tumbled  back  into  his  punt  and  pushed  off  vigorously. 
I  watched  him  land,  and  disappear  in  the  direction  of 
the  village. 

Half  an  hour  passed,  but  Jimmy  did  not  reappear. 
No  one  felt  sufficiently  energetic  to  go  after  him. 
We  had  only  just  strength  enough  to  sit  still  and  feebly 
abuse  him.  At  the  end  of  an  hour,  we  were  all  feeling 
very  much  better.  At  the  end  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  we 
were  glad  he  had  not  returned  when  he  ought  to  have, 
and  were  only  curious  as  to  what  had  become  of  him. 

In  the  evening,  strolling  through  the  village,  we  saw 
him  sitting  by  the  open  door  of  his  mother's  cottage, 
with  a  shawl  wrapped  round  him.  He  was  looking  worn 
and  ill. 

"Why  Jimmy,"  I  said,  "what's  the  matter?  Why 
didn't  you  come  back  this  morning?  " 

"I  couldn't,  sir,"  Jimmy  answered,  "I  was  so  queer. 
Mother  made  me  go  to  bed," 


122  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  You    seemed    all    right  in   the    morning,"    I  said ; 
"  what's  made  you  queer  ?  " 

"  What  Mr.  Jones  give  me,  sir;  it  upset  me  awful." 


LOOKING   WORN    AND   ILL. 


A  light  broke  in  upon  me. 

"  What  did  you  say,  Jimmy,  when  you  got  to  Mr. 
Jones'  shop  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  told  'im  what  you  said,  sir,  that  'e  was  to  give  me 
something  to  counteract  the  effects  of  vegetable  poison- 
ing. And  that  it  was  to  be  very  strong,  and  enough 
for  four." 

"  And  what  did  he  say  ?  " 

"  'E  said  that  was  only  your  nonsense,  sir,  and  that 
I'd  better  have  enough  for  one  to  begin  with  ;  and  then 
'e  asked  me  if  I'd  been  eating  green  apple  again." 

"  And  you  told  him  ?  " 

"Yees,  sir,  I  told   'im  I'd  'ad  a  few,  and  'e  said  it 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


123 


served  me  right,  and  that  'e  'oped  it  would  be  a  warning 
to  me.  And  then  'e  put  something  fizzy  in  a  glass  and 
told  me  to  drink  it." 

"  And  you  drank  it  ?" 

"  Yees,  sir." 

"  It  never  occurred  to  you,  Jimmy,  that  there  was 
nothing  the  matter 
with  you  —  that  you 
were  never  feeling 
better  in  your  life, 
and  that  you  did  not 
require  any  medi- 
cine?" 

"  No,  sir." 

"  Did   one  single 
scintilla  of  thought 
of  any  kind  occur  to 
you  in  connection  with  the  mat- 
ter, Jimmy,  from   beginning  to 
end  ?  " 

"  No,  sir." 

People  who  never  met  Jimmy 
disbelieve     this     story.     They 

argue  that  its  premises  are  in  disaccord  with  the 
known  laws  governing  human  natures,  that  its  details  do 
not  square  with  the  average  of  probability.  People  who 
have  seen  and  conversed  with  Jimmy  accept  it  with 
simple  faith. 

The  advent  of  Jephson,  which  I  trust  the  reader  has 
not  entirely  forgotten,  cheered  us  up  considerably. 
Jephson  was  always  at  his  best  when  all  other  things 
were  at  their  worst.  It  was  not  that  he  struggled  in 
Mark  Tapley  fashion  to  appear  most  cheerful  when 
most  depressed  ;  it  was  that  petty  misfortunes  and  mis- 


.  TOLD  ME  T0  DRINK  1T/ 


124  NOVEL  NOTES. 

haps  genuinely  amused  and  inspirited  him.  Most  of 
us  can  recall  our  unpleasant  experiences  with  amused 
affection  ;  Jephson  possessed  the  robuster  philosophy 
that  enabled  him  to  enjoy  his  during  their  actual  prog- 
ress. He  arrived  drenched  to  the  skin,  chuckling 
hugely  at  the  idea  of  having  come  down  on  a  visit  to  a 
houseboat  in  such  weather. 

Under  his  warming  influence,  the  hard  lines  on  our 
faces  thawed,  and  by  suppertime  we  were,  as  all  Eng- 
lish men  and  women  who  wish  to  enjoy  life  should  be, 
independent  of  the  weather. 

Later  on,  as  if  disheartened  by  our  indifference,  the 
rain  ceased,  and  we  took  our  chairs  out  on  the  deck,  and 
sat  watching  the  lightning,  which  still  played  incessantly. 
Then,  not  unnaturally,  the  talk  drifted  into  a  somber 
channel,  and  we  began  recounting  stories,  dealing  with 
the  gloomy  and  mysterious  side  of  life. 

Some  of  these  were  worth  remembering,  and  some 
were  not.  The  one  that  left  the  strongest  impression  on 
my  mind  was  a  tale  that  Jephson  told  us. 

I  had  been  relating  a  somewhat  curious  experience  of 
my  own.  I  met  a  man  in  the  Strand  one  day  that  I  knew 
very  well,  as  I  thought,  though  I  had  not  seen  him  for 
years.  We  walked  together  to  Charing  Cross,  and  there 
we  shook  hands  and  parted.  Next  morning  I  spoke  of 
this  meeting  to  a  mutual  friend,  and  then  I  learned, 
for  the  first  time,  that  the  man  had  died  six  months 
before. 

The  natural  inference  was  that  I  had  mistaken  one 
man  for  another,  an  error  that,  not  having  a  good  memory 
for  faces,  I  frequently  fall  into.  What  was  remarkable 
about  the  matter,  however,  was  that  throughout  our  walk 
I  had  conversed  with  the  man  under  the  impression  that 
he  was  that  other  dead  man,  and,  whether  by  coincidence 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


or  not,  his  replies  had  never  once  suggested  to  me  my 
mistake. 

As  soon  as  I  finished,  Jephson,  who  had  been  listening 
very  thoughtfully,  asked  me  if 
I  believed    in  spiritualism  "to 
its  fullest  extent." 

"  That  is  rather  a  large  ques- 
t  i  o  n  ,  "   I    answered. 
"  What   do   you   mean 
by  '  spiritualism  to  its 
fullest  extent'  ?" 

"  Well,  do 
you  believe 
that  the  spirits 
of  the  dead 
have  not  only 
the  power  of 
revisiting  this 
earth  at  their 
will,  but  that, 
when  here,  they 
have  the  power 
of  action,  or 
rather,  of  excit- 
ing to  action. 
Let  me  put  a 
definite  case. 
A  spiritualist 
friend  of  mine, 
a  sensible  and 
by  no  means 

imaginative  man,  once  told  me  that  a  table,  through  the 
medium  of  which  the  spirit  of  a  friend  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  communicating  with  him,  came  slowly  across  the 


\RING   CROSS. 


126  NOVEL   NOTES. 

room  toward  him,  of  its  own  accord,  one  night  as  he  sat 
alone,  and  pinioned  him  against  the  wall.  Now,  can  any 
of  you  believe  that,  or  can't  you  ? " 

"  I  could,"  Brown  took  it  upon  himself  to  reply  ;  "  but, 
before  doing  so,  I  should  wish  for  an  introduction  to  the 
friend  who  told  you  the  story.  Speaking  generally,"  he 
continued,  "  it  seems  to  me  that  the  difference  between 
what  we  call  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  is  merely 
the  difference  between  frequency  and  rarity  of  occur- 
rence. Having  regard  to  the  phenomena  we  are  com- 
pelled to  admit,  I  think  it  illogical  to  disbelieve  anything 
that  we  are  not  able  to  disprove." 

"For  my  part,"  remarked  MacShaughnassy,  "I  can 
believe  in  the  ability  of  our  spirit  friends  to  give  the 
quaint  entertainments  credited  to  them  much  easier  than 
I  can  in  their  desire  to  do  so." 

"You  mean,"  added  Jephson,  "that  you  cannot 
understand  why  a  spirit,  not  compelled  as  we  are 
by  the  exigencies  of  society,  should  care  to  spend 
its  evenings  carrying  on  a  labored  and  childish  con- 
versation with  a  room  full  of  abnormally  uninteresting 
people." 

"  That  is  precisely  what  I  cannot  understand,"  Mac- 
Shaughnassy  agreed. 

"  Nor  I,  either,"  said  Jephson.  "  But  I  was  thinking 
of  something  very  different  altogether.  Suppose  a  man 
died  with  the  dearest  wish  of  his  heart  unfulfilled,  do 
you  believe  that  his  spirit  might  have  power  to  return  to 
earth  and  complete  the  interrupted  work?  " 

"  Well,"  answered  MacShaughnassy,  "  if  one  admits  the 
possibility  of  spirits  retaining  any  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
this  world  at  all,  it  is  certainly  more  reasonable  to  imag- 
ine them  engaged  upon  a  task  such  as  you  suggest,  than 
to  believe  that  they  occupy  themselves  with  the  per- 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


127 


formance  of  mere  drawing-room  tricks.     But  what  are 
you  leading  up  to  ?" 

"Why  to  this,"  replied  Jephson,  seating  himself 
straddle  -  legged  ,:f~?~-~ 
across  his  chair,  ?,:.""  j  ''i.;??"**"' 
and  leaning  his 
arms  upon  the 
back.  "  I  was  told 
a  story  this  morn- 
ing at  the  hospital 
by  an  old  French 
doctor.  The  ac- 
tual facts  are  few 
and  simple ;  all 
that  is  known  can 
be  read  in  the 
Paris  police  rec- 
ords of  sixty-two 
years  ago. 

"The  most  im- 
portant part  of  the 
case,  however,  is 
the  part  that  •  is 
not  known,  and 
that  never  will  be 
known. 

"  The  story  be- 
gins with  a  great  wrong  done  by  one  man  unto  another 
man.  What  the  wrong  was  I  do  not  know.  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  however,  it  was  connected  with  a 
woman.  I  think  that,  because  he  who  had  been  wronged 
hated  him  who  had  wronged  with  a  hate  such  as  does 
not  often  burn  in  a  man's  brain  unless  it  be  fanned 
by  the  memory  of  a  woman's  breath. 


V-n, 


'TO   THIS,     KEl'LIED   JEPHS 


128  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"Still,  that  is  only  conjecture,  and  the  point  is  imma- 
terial. The  man  who  had  done  the  wrong  fled,  and'  the 
other  man  followed  him.  It  became  a  point  to  point  race, 
the  first  man  having  the  advantage  of  a  day's  start. 
The  course  was  the  whole  world,  and  the  stakes  were  the 
first  man's  life. 

"  Travelers  were  few  and  far  between  in  those  days,, 
and  this  made  the  trail  easy  to  follow.  The  first  man, 
never  knowing  how  far  or  how  near  the  other  man  was 
behind  him,  and  hoping  now  and  again  that  he  might 
have  baffled  him,  would  rest  for  a  while.  The  second 
man,  knowing  always  just  how  far  the  first  one  was 
before  him,  never  paused,  and  thus  each  day  the  man 
who  was  spurred  by  hate  drew  nearer  to  the  man  who 
was  spurred  by  fear. 

"  At  this  town  the  answer  to  the  never  varied  ques- 
tion would  be  : 

"  'At  seven  o'clock  last  evening,  m'sieur.' 

"  '  Seven — ah  ;  eighteen  hours.  Give  me  something 
to  eat,  quick,  while  the  horses  are  being  put  to.' 

"  At  the  next  the  calculation  would  be  sixteen  hours. 

"  Passing  a  lonely  chalet,  monsieur  puts  his  head  out 
of  the  window  : 

"  '  How  long  since  a  carriage  passed  this  way,  with  a 
tall,  fair  man  inside  !  ' 

"  Such  a  one  passed  early  this  morning,  m'sieur." 

"Thanks,  drive  on,  a  hundred  francs  apiece  if  you  are 
through  the  pass  before  daybreak.' 

"  '  And  what  for  dead  horses,  m'sieur  ?' 

"  '  Twice  their  value  when  living.' 

"  '  One  day  the  man  who  was  ridden  by  fear  looked 
up,  and  saw  before  him  the  open  door  of  a  cathedral, 
.and,  passing  in,  knelt  down  and  prayed.  He  prayed  long 
and  fervently,  for  men,  when  they  are  in  sore  straits, 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


129 


clutch  eagerly  at  the  straws  of  faith.  He  prayed  that 
he  might  be  forgiven  his  sin,  and,  more  important  still, 
that  he  might  be  pardoned  the  consequences  of  his  sin, 


"  MONSIEUR    PUTS   HIS    HEAD   OUT   OF  THE   WINDOW. 

and  be  delivered  from  his  adversary  ;  and  a  few  chairs 
from  him,  facing  him,  knelt  his  enemy,  praying  also. 

"  But  the  second   man's  prayer,  being  a  thanksgiving 
merely,  was  short,  so  that  when  the  first  man  raised  his 


13°  NOVEL  NOTES. 

eyes,  he  saw  the  face  of  his  enemy  gazing  at  him  across 
the  chair  tops,  with  a  mocking  smile  upon  it. 

"  He  made  no  attempt  to  rise,  but  remained  kneeling, 
fascinated  by  the  look  of  joy  that  shone  out  of  the  other 
man's  eyes.  And  the  other  man  moved  the  high-backed 
chairs  one  by  one,  and  came  toward  him  softly. 

"  Then  just  as  the  man  who  had  been  wronged  stood 
beside  the  man  who  had  wronged  him,  full  of  gladness 
that  his  opportunity  had  come,  there  burst  from  the 
cathedral  tower  a  sudden  clash  of  bells,  and  the  man 
whose  opportunity  had  come  broke  his  heart  and  fell 
back  dead,  with  that  mocking  smile  still  playing  round 
his  mouth. 

"  And  so  he  lay  there. 

"  Then  the  man  who  had  done  the  wrong  rose  up  and 
passed  out  praising  God. 

.  "  What  became  of  the  body  of  the  other  man  is  not 
known.  It  was  the  body  of  a  stranger  who  had  died 
suddenly  in  the  cathedral.  There  was  none  to  identify 
it,  none  to  claim  it. 

"  Years  passed  away,  and  the  survivor  in  the  tragedy 
became  a  worthy  and  useful  citizen,  and  a  noted  man  of 
science. 

"  In  his  laboratory  were  many  objects  necessary  to 
him  in  his  researches,  and  prominent  among  them,  stood 
in  a  certain  corner,  a  human  skeleton.  It  was  a  very 
old  and  much-mended  skeleton,  and  one  day  the  long- 
expected  end  arrived,  and  it  tumbled  to  pieces. 

"  Thus  it  became  necessary  to  purchase  another. 

"  The  man  of  science  visited  a  dealer  he  well  knew  ; 
a  little  parchment  faced-old  man  who  kept  a  clingy  shop^ 
where  nothing  was  ever  sold,  within  the  shadow  of  the 
towers  of  Notre  Dame. 

"  The  little  parchment-faced    old   man  had  just  the 


NOVEL  NOTES.  131 

very  thing  that  Monsieur  wanted — a  singularly  fine  and 
well  proportioned  '  study.'     It  should  be  sent  round  and 


'AND   SO    HE   LAY   THERE. 


set  up  in  Monsieur's   laboratory  that    very  afternoon. 
The  dealer  was  as  good   as  his    word.      When    Mon- 


132  NOVEL  NOTES. 

sieur  entered  his  laboratory  that  evening,  the  thing  was 
in  its  place. 

"Monsieur  seated  himself  in  his  high-backed  chair, 
and  tried  to  collect  his  thoughts.  But  Monsieur's 
thoughts  were  unruly,  and  inclined  to  wander,  and  to 
wander  always  in  one  direction. 

"  Monsieur  opened  a  large  volume  and  commenced 
to  read.  He  read  of  a  man  who  had  wronged  another 
and  fled  from  him,  the  other  man  following.  Finding 
himself  reading  this,  he  closed  the  book  angrily,  and 
went  and  stood  by  the  window  and  looked  out.  He  saw 
before  him  the  sun-pierced  nave  of  a  great  cathedral, 
and  on  the  stones  lay  a  dead  man  with  a  mocking  smile 
upon  his  face. 

"Cursing  himself  for  a  fooi,  he  turned  away  with  a 
laugh.  But  his  laugh  was  short-lived,  for  it  seemed  to 
him  that  something  else  in  the  room  was  laughing  also. 
Struck  suddenly  still,  with  his  feet  glued  to  the  ground, 
he  stood  listening  for  a  while  ;  then  sought  with  starting 
eyes  the  corner  from  where  the  sound  had  seemed  to 
come.  But  the  white  thing  standing  there  was  only 
grinning. 

"  Monsieur  wiped  the  damp  sweat  from  his  head  and 
hands,  and  stole  out. 

"  For  a  couple  of  days  he  did  not  enter  the  room 
again.  On  the  third,  telling  himself  that  his  fears  were 
those  of  a  hysterical  girl,  he  opened  the  door  and  went 
in.  To  shame  himself,  he  took  his  lamp  in  his  hand,  and 
crossing  over  to  the  far  corner  where  the  skeleton  stood, 
examined  it.  A  set  of  bones  bought  for  a  hundred 
francs.  Was  he  a  child,  to  be  scared  by  such  a  bogey  ? 

"  He  held  his  lamp  up  in  front  of  the  thing's  grinning 
head.  The  flame  of  the  lamp  flickered  as  though  a  faint 
breath  had  passed  over  it. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  133 

"  The  man  explained  this  to  himself  by  saying  that  the 
walls  of  the  house  were  old  and  cracked,  and  that  the 
wind  might  creep  in  anywhere.  He  repeated  this  expla- 
nation to  himself  as  he  recrossed  the  room,  walking  back- 
ward, with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  thing.  When  he  reached 
his  desk,  he  sat  down  and  gripped  the  arms  of  his  chair 
till  his  fingers  turned  white. 

"  He  tried  to  work,  but  the  empty  sockets  in  that 
grinning  head  seemed  to  be  drawing  him  toward  them. 
He  rose  and  battled  with  his  inclination  to  fly  screaming 
from  the  room.  Glancing  fearfully  about  him,  his  eye 
fell  upon  a  high  screen,  standing  before  the  door.  He 
dragged  it  forward,  and  placed  it  between  himself  and 
the  thing,  so  that  he  could  not  see  it — nor  it  see  him. 
Then  he  sat  down  again  to  his  work.  For  a  while  he 
forced  himself  to  look  at  the  book  in  front  of  him,  but  at 
last,  unable  to  control  himself  any  longer,  he  suffered  his 
eyes  to  follow  their  own  bent. 

"  It  may  have  been  an  hallucination.  He  may  have 
accidentally  placed  the  screen  so  as  to  favor  such  an 
illusion.  But  what  he  saw  was  a  bony  hand  coming 
round  the  corner  of  the  screen,  and,  with  a  cry,  he  fell  to 
the  floor  in  a  swoon. 

"  The  people  of  the  house  came  running  in,  and  lifting 
him  up,  carried  him  out,  and  laid  him  upon  his  bed.  As 
soon  as  he  recovered,  his  first  question  was,  where  had 
they  found  the  thing — where  was  it  when  they  entered 
the  room  ?  and  when  they  told  him  they  had  seen  it 
standing  where  it  always  stood,  and  had  gone  down  into 
the  room  to  look  again,  because  of  his  frenzied  entreaties, 
and  returned  trying  to  hide  their  smiles,  he  listened  to 
their  talk  about  overwork,  and  the  necessity  for  change 
and  rest,  and  said  they  might  do  with  him  as  they 
would. 


134  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  So  for  many  months  the  laboratory  door  remained 
locked.  Then  there  came  a  chill  autumn  evening  when 
the  man  of  science  opened  it  again,  and  closed  it  behind 
him. 

"  He  lighted  his  lamp,  and  gathered  his  instruments 
and  books  around  him,  and  sat  down  before  them  in  his 
high-backed  chair.  And  the  old  terror  returned  to 
him. 

"  But  this  time  he  meant  to  conquer  himself.  His 
nerves  were  stronger  now,  and  his  brain  clearer  ;  he 
would  fight  his  unreasoning  fear.  He  crossed  to  the  door 
and  locked  himself  in,  and  flung  the  key  to  the  other  end 
of  the  room,  where  it  fell  among  jars  and  bottles  with  an 
echoing  clatter. 

"  Later  on,  his  old  housekeeper,  going  her  final  round, 
tapped  at  his  door  and  wished  him  good-night,  as 
was  her  custom.  She  received  no  response,  at  first,  and, 
growing  nervous,  tapped  louder  and  called  again  ;  and 
at  length  an  answering  'good-night '  came  back  to  her. 

"  She  thought  little  about  it  at  the  time,  but  afterward 
she  remembered  that  the  voice  that  had  replied  to  her 
had  been  strangely  grating  and  mechanical.  Trying  to 
describe  it,  she  likened  it  to  such  a  voice  as  she  would 
imagine  coming  from  a  statue. 

"  Next  morning  his  door  remained  still  locked.  It  was 
no  unusual  thing  for  him  to  work  all  night,  and  far  into 
the  next  day,  so  no  one  thought  to  be  surprised.  When, 
however,  evening  came,  and  yet  he  did  not  appear,  his 
servants  gathered  outside  the  room  and  whispered, 
remembering  what  had  happened  once  before. 

"  They  listened,  but  could  hear  no  sound.  They 
shook  the  door  and  called  to  him,  then  beat  with  their 
fists  upon  the  wooden  panels.  But  still  no  sound  came 
from  the  room. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  135 

"  Becoming  alarmed,  they  decided  to  burst  open  the 
door,  and,  after  many  blows,  it  gave  way,  and  they 
crowded  in. 

•'  He  sat  bolt  upright  in  his  high-backed  chair.  They 
thought  at  first  he  had  died  in  his  sleep.  But  when  they 
drew  nearer  and  the  light  fell  upon  him,  they  saw  the 
livid  marks  of  bony  fingers  round  his  throat  ;  and  in  his 
eyes  there  was  a  terror  such  as  is  not  often  seen  in 
human  eyes." 

Brown  was  the  first  to  break  the  silence  that  followed. 
He  asked  me  if  I  had  any  brandy  on  board.  He  said  he 
felt  he  should  like  just  a  nip  of  brandy  before  going  to 
bed.  That  is  one  of  the  chief  charms  of  Jephson's 
stories  :  they  always  make  you  feel  you  want  a  little 
brandy. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

|.\TS,"  remarked  Jephson  tome,  one  afternoon, 
as  we  sat  in  the  punt  discussing  the  plot  of 
our  novel,  "  cats  are  animals  for  whom  I 
entertain  a  very  great  respect.  Cats  and 
Nonconformists  seem  to  me  the  only  things  in  this  world 
possessed  of  a  practicable  working  conscience.  Watch 
a  cat  doing  something  mean  and  wrong — if  ever  one 
gives  you  the  chance  ;  notice  how  anxious  she  is  that 
nobody  should  see  her  doing  it  ;  and  how  prompt,  if 
detected,  to  pretend  that  she  was  not  doing  it — that  she 
was  not  even  thinking  of  doing  it — that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  she  was  just  about  to  do  something  else,  quite 
different.  You  might  almost  think  they  had  a  soul. 

"  Only  this  morning  I  was  watching  that  tortoise-shell 
of  yours  on  the  houseboat.  She  was  creeping  along 
the  roof,  behind  the  flower  boxes,  stalking  a  young 
thrush  that  had  perched  upon  a  coil  of  rope.  Murder 
gleamed  from  her  eye,  assassination  lurked  in  every 
twitching  muscle  of  her  body.  As  she  crouched  to 
spring,  fate,  for  once  favoring  the  weak,  directed  her 
attention  to  myself,  and  she  became,  for  the  first  time, 
aware  of  my  presence.  It  acted  upon  her  as  a  heavenly 
vision  upon  a  biblical  criminal.  In  an  instant  she  was 
a  changed  being.  The  wicked  beast,  going  about  seek- 
ing  whom  it  might  devour,  had  vanished.  In  its  place, 
sat  a  long-tailed,  furry  angel,  gazing  up  into  the  sky  with 
an  expression  that  was  one-third  innocence  and  two- 
thirds  admiration  of  the  beauties  of  nature.  What  was 
136 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


137 


she  doing  there,  did  I  want  to  know  ?  Why,  could  I  not 
see,  playing  with  a  bit  of  earth.  Surely  I  was  not  so 
evil  minded  as  to  imagine  she  wanted  to  kill  that  dear 
little  bird — 
God  bless  it ! 

"  Then  note 
an  old  Tom, 
slinking  home 
in  the  early 
morning,  after 
a  night  spent 
on  a  roof  of 
bad  repute. 
Can  you  picture  to  yourself  a  living  creature  less  eager 
to  attract  attention  ?  '  Dear  me,'  you  can  all  but  hear  it 
saying  to  itself,  '  I'd  no  idea  it  was  so  late  ;  how  time  does 
go  when  one  is  enjoying  one's  self.  I  do  hope  I  shan't 
meet  anyone  I  know — very  awkward,  its  being  so  light.' 

"In  the  distance  it  sees  a  policeman,  and  stops  sud- 
denly within  the  shelter  of  a  shadow.     Now,  what's  he 


doing  there,'  it  says,  '  and  close  to  our  door  too  ?  I 
can't  go  in  while  he's  hanging  about.  He's  sure  to  see 
and  recognize  me  ;  and  he's  just  the  sort  of  man  to 
talk  to  the  servants.' 


138  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  It  hides  itself  behind  a  post,  and  waits,  peeping 
cautiously  round  the  corner  from  time  to  time.  The 
policeman,  however,  seems  to  have  taken  up  his  resi- 
dence at  that  particular  spot,  and  the  cat  becomes 
worried  and  excited. 

"  '  What's  the  matter  with  the  fool  ? '  it  mutters  indig- 
nantly ;  '  is  he  dead  ?  Why  don't  he  move  on,  he's 
always  telling  other  people  to.  Stupid  ass  ! ' 

"Just  then  a  far-off  cry  of  'milk'  is  heard,  and  the 
cat  starts  up  in  an  agony  of  alarm.  '  Great  Scott,  hark 
at  that  !  Why,  everybody  will  be  down  before  I  get  in. 
Well,  I  can't  help  it.  I  must  chance  it.' 

"  He  glances  round  at  himself,  and  hesitates.  '  I 
wouldn't  mind  if  I  didn't  look  so  dirty  and  untidy,'  he 
muses  ;  '  people  are  so  prone  to  think  evil  in  this  world.' 

"  '  Ah,  well,'  he  adds,  giving  himself  a  shake,  '  there's 
nothing  else  for  it,  I  must  put  my  trust  in  Providence, 
it's  pulled  me  through  before  :  here  goes.' 

"  He  assumes  an  aspect  of  chastened  sorrow,  and  trots 
along  with  a  demure  and  saddened  step.  It  is  evident 
he  wishes  to  convey  the  idea  that  he  has  been  out  all 
night  on  work  connected  with  the  Vigilance  Association, 
and  is  now  returning  home  sick  at  heart  because  of  the 
sights  that  he  has  seen. 

"  He  squirms  in,  unnoticed,  through  a  window,  and 
has  just  time  to  give  himself  a  hurried  lick  down  before 
he  hears  the  cook's  step  on  the  stairs.  When  she  enters 
the  kitchen  he  is  curled  up  on  the  hearthrug,  fast 
asleep.  The  opening  of  the  shutters  awakes  him.  He 
arises  and  comes  forward,  yawning  and  stretching  him- 
self. 

" '  Dear  me,  is  it  morning,  then  ? '  he  says  drowsily. 
'  Heigh-ho  !  I've  had  such  a  lovely  sleep,  cook  ;  and 
such  a  beautiful  dream  about  poor  mother.' 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


'39 


"  Cats  !  do  you  call  them  ?  Why  they  are  Christians 
in  everything  except  the  number  of  legs." 

"  They  certainly  are,"  I  responded,  "  wonderfully  cun- 
ning little  animals, 
and  it  is  not  by  their 
moral  and  religious 
instincts  alone  that 
they  are  so  closely 
linked  to  man  ;  the 
marvelous  ability 
they  display  in  tak- 
ingcareof  '  number 
one '  is  worthy  of 
the  human  race  it- 
self. Some  friends 
of  mine  had  a  cat, 
a  big  black  Tom  ; 
they  have  got  half 
of  him  still.  They  had  reared  him  from  a  kitten,  and, 
in  their  homely,  undemonstrative  way,  they  liked  him. 
There  was  nothing,  however,  approaching  passion  on 
either  side. 

"One  day,  a  Chinchilla  came  to  live  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, under  the  charge  of  an  elderly  spinster,  and  the 
two  cats  met  at  a  garden-wall  party. 

"  '  What  sort  of  diggings  have  you  got  ? '  asked  the 
Chinchilla. 

"'Oh,  pretty  fair.' 

"  '  Nice  people  ? ' 

"  '  Yes,  nice  enough — as  people  go.' 

"  '  Pretty  willing  ?  Look  after  you  well,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing?' 

" '  Yes — oh,  yes.     I've  no  fault  to  find  with  them.' 

"  '  What's  the  victuals  like  ? ' 


140 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


"'Oh,  the  usual  thing,  you  know,  bones  and  scraps, 
and  a  bit  of  dog-biscuit  now  and  then  for  a  change.' 


"  '  Bones  and  dog-biscuits  !  Do  you  mean  to  say  you 
eat  bones  !  ' 

"  '  Yes,  when  I  can  get  'em.  Why,  what's  wrong  about 
them  ? ' 

"'Shade  of  Egyptian  Isis,  bones  and  dog-biscuits! 
Don't  you  ever  get  any  spring  chickens,  or  a  sardine,  or 
a  lamb  cutlet  ? ' 

'"  Chickens  !  Sardines  !  What  are  you  talking  about  ? 
What  are  sardines  ?  ' 

"  '  What  are  sardines  !  Oh,  my  dear  child  [the  Chin- 
chilla was  a  lady  cat  and  always  called  gentlemen 
friends  a  little  older  than  herself  'dear  child'],  these 
people  of  yours  are  treating  you  just  shamefully. 
Come,  sit  down  and  tell  me  all  about  it.  What  do 
they  give  you  to  sleep  on  ?  The  floor  ?  I  thought  so  ; 
and  skim  milk  and  water  to  drink,  I  suppose.' 

"  '  It  is  a  bit  thin.' 

" '  I  can  quite  imagine  it.  You  must  leave  these  peo- 
ple, my  dear,  at  once.' 

"  '  But  where  am  I  to  go  to  ?' 

"  '  Anywhere.' 

"  '-But  who'll  take  me  in  ? ' 

"  '  Anybody,  if  you  go  the  right  way  to  work.     How 


NOVEL  NOTES.  141 

many  times  do  you  think  I  have  changed  my  people  ? 
Seven  ! — and  bettered  myself  on  each  occasion.  Why, 
do  you  know  where  I  was  born  ?  In  a  pig-sty.  There 
were  three  of  us,  mother  and  I  and  my  little  brother. 
Mother  would  leave  us  every  evening,  returning  gener- 
ally just  as  it  was  getting  light.  One  morning  she  did  not 
come  back.  We  waited  and  waited,  but  the  day  passed 
on  and  she  did  not  return,  and  we  grew  hungrier  and 
hungrier,  and  at  last  we  lay  down,  side  by  side,  and  cried 
ourselves  to  sleep. 

" '  In  the  evening,  peeping  through  a  hole  in  the  door, 
we  saw  her  coming  across  the  field.  She  was  crawling 
very  slowly,  with  her  body 
close  down  against  the 
ground.  We  called  to 
her,  and  she  answered 
with  a  low"crroo";  but 
she  did  not  hasten  her 
pace. 

"  '  She  crept  in  and  rolled  over  on  her  side,  and  we  ran 
to  her,  for  we  were  almost  starving.  We  lay  long  upon 
her  breasts,  and  she  licked  us  over  and  over. 

"  '  I  dropped  asleep  upon  her,  and  in  the  night  I  awoke, 
feeling  cold.  I  crept  closer  to  her,  but  that  only  made 
me  colder  still,  and  she  was  wet  and  clammy  with  a  dark 
moisture  that  was  oozing  from  her  side.  I  did  not  know 
what  it  was  at  that  time,  but  I  have  learnt  since. 

"  '  That  was  when  I  could  hardly  have  been  four  weeks 
old,  and  from  that  day  to  this  I've  looked  after  myself : 
you've  got  to  do  that  in  this  world,  my  dear.  For  a 
while,  I  and  my  brother  lived  on  in  that  sty  and  kept 
ourselves.  It  was  a  grim  struggle  at  first,  two  babies 
fighting  for  life  ;  but  we  pulled  through.  At  the  end  of 
about  three  months,  wandering  farther  from  home  than 


142 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


usual,  I  came  upon  a  cottage  standing  in  the  fields.     It 

looked  warm  and  cozy  through  the  open  door,  and  I  went 

in  ;  I  have  always  been  blessed  with  plenty  of  nerve. 
Some  children  were  playing 
round  the  fire,  and  they  welcomed 
me  and  made  much  of  me.  It  was 
a  new  sensation  to  me,  and  I  stayed 
there.  I  thought  the  place  a  pal- 
ace at  the  time. 

"  '  I  might  have  gone  on  thinking 

so  if-it  had  not  been  that,  passing  through  the  village  one 

day,  I  happened  to  catch  sight  of  a  room  behind  a  shop. 

There  was  a  carpet   on   the    floor,  and  a  rug  before  the 

fire.     I  had  never  known  till   then  that  there  were  such 

luxuries   in   the  world.     I  determined  to  make  that  shop 

my  home,  and  I  did  so.' 

"  '  How  did  you  manage  it  ?'  asked  the  black  cat,  who 

was  growing  interested. 

" '  By   the   simple    process  of  walking  in  and  sitting 

down.     My  dear  child,  cheek's  the  "Open   sesame  "  to 

every  door.     The  cat  that  works  hard  dies  of  starvation, 

the  cat  that  has  brains  is  kicked  downstairs  for  a  fool, 

and  the   cat   that   has 

virtue  is  drowned  for 

a  scamp  ;  but  the  cat 

that  has  cheek  sleeps 

on    a    velvet    cushion 

and  dines  on  cream  and 

horseflesh.    I  marched 

straight  in  and  rubbed 

myself  against  the  old 

man's   legs.     He   and 

what  they   called    my 


his  wife  were  quite  taken  with 
'•'  trustfulness,"  and   adopted   me 


with  enthusiasm.    Strolling  about  the  fields  of  an  evening 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


143 


I  often  used  to  hear  the  children  of  the  cottage  calling 
my  name.  It  was  weeks  before  they  gave  up  seeking 
for  me.  One  of  them,  the  youngest,  would  sob  herself  to 
sleep  of  a  night,  thinking  that  I  was  dead  :  they  were 
affectionate  children. 

" '  I  boarded  with  my  shopkeeping  friends-for  nearly  a 
year,  and  from  them  I  went  to  some  new  people  who  had 
lately  come  to  the  neighborhood,  and  who  possessed  a 
really  excellent  cook.  I  think  I  could  have  been  very 
satisfied  with  these  people,  but,  unfortunately,  they  came 
down  in  the  world, 
and  had  to  give  up  the 
big  house  and  the 
cook,  and  take  a  cot- 
tage, and  I  did  not 
care  to  go  back  to  that 
sort  of  life. 

'"Accordingly  I 
looked  about  for  a 
fresh  opening.  There 
was  a  curious  old  fel- 
low who  lived  not  far  off.  People  said  he  was  rich,  but 
nobody  liked  him.  He  was  shaped  differently  to  other 
men.  I  turned  the  matter  over  in  my  mind  for  a  day  or 
two,  and  then  determined  to  give  him  a  trial.  Being  a 
lonely  sort  of  man,  he  might  make  a  fuss  over  me,  and  if 
not  1  could  go. 

'"My  surmise  proved  correct.  I  have  never  been 
more  petted  than  I  was  by  "  Toady,"  as  the  village  boys 
had  dubbed  him.  My  present  guardian  is  foolish  enough 
over  me,  goodness  knows,  but  she  has  other  ties,  while 
"  Toady  "  had  nothing  else  to  love,  not  even  himself. 
He  could  hardly  believe  his  eyes  at  first  when  I  jumped 
up  on  his  knees  and  rubbed  myself  against  his  ugly  face. 


144  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  Why,  kitty,"  he  said,  "  do  you  know  you're  the  first 
living  thing  that  has  ever  come  to  me  of  its  own  accord  ?  " 
There  were  tears  in  his  funny  little  red  eyes  as  he  said 
that. 

"  '  I  remained  two  years  with  "  Toady,"  and  was  very 
happy  indeed.  Then  he  fell  ill,  and  strange  people  came 
to  the  house,  and  I  was  neglected.  "  Toady"  liked  me 
to  come  up  and  lie  upon  the  bed,  where  he  could  stroke 
me  with  his  long,  thin  hand,  and  at  first  I  used  to  do  this. 
But  a  sick  man  is  not  the  best  of  company,  as  you  can 
imagine,  and  the  atmosphere  of  a  sick  room  not  too 
healthy,  so,  all  things  considered,  I  felt  it  was  time  for 
me  to  make  a  fresh  move. 

"'I  had  some  difficulty  in  getting  away.  "Toady" 
was  always  asking  for  me,  and  they  tried  to  keep  me 
with  him  ;  he  seemed  to  lie  easier  when  I  was  there.  I 
succeeded  at  length,  however,  and,  once  outside  the 
door,  I  put  sufficient  distance  between  myself  and  the 
house  to  insure  my  not  being  captured,  for  I  knew 
"  Toady,"  so  long  as  he  lived,  would  never  cease  hoping 
to  get  me  back. 

"  '  Where  to  go  I  did  not  know.  Two  or  three  homes 
were  offered  me,  but  none  of  them  quite  suited  me.  At 
one  place,  where  I  put  up  for  a  day,  just  to  see  how  I 
liked  it,  there  was  a  dog  ;  and  at  another,  which  would 
otherwise  have  done  admirably,  they  kept  a  baby.  What- 
ever you  do,  never  stop  at  a  house  where  they  keep  a 
baby.  If  a  child  pulls  your  tail  or  ties  a  paper  bag  round 
your  head,  you  can  give  it  one  for  itself  and  nobody 
blames  you.  "  Well,  serves  you  right,"  they  say  to  the 
yelling  brat,  "  you  shouldn't  tease  the  poor  thing."  But 
if  you  resent  a  baby's  holding  you  by  the  throat  and 
trying  to  gouge  out  your  eye  with  a  wooden  ladle,  you 
are  called  a  spiteful  beast,  and  "  shoo'd  "  all  round  the 


NOVEL  NOTES.  145 

garden.  If  people  keep  babies,  they  don't  keep  me  ; 
that's  my  rule. 

"  '  After  sampling  some  three  or  four  families,  I  finally 
fixed  upon  a  banker.  Offers  more  advantageous  from  a 
worldly  point  of  view  were  open  to  me.  I  could  have 
gone  to  a  public  house,  where  the  victuals  were  simply 
unlimited,  and  where  the  back  door  was  left  open  all 
night.  But  about  the  banker's  (he  was  also  a  church- 
warden, and  his  wife  never  smiled  at  anything  less  than 
a  joke  by  the  bishop)  there  was  an  atmosphere  of  solid 
respectability  that  I  felt  would  be  comforting  to  my 
nature.  My  dear  child,  you  will  come  across  cynics  who 
will  sneer  at  respectability;  don't  you  listen  to  them.  Re- 
spectability is  its  own  reward — and  a  very  real  and 
practical  reward.  It  may  not  bring  you  dainty  dishes 
and  soft  beds,  but  it  brings  you  something  better  and 
more  lasting.  It  brings  you  consciousness  that  you  are 
living  the  right  life,  that  you  are  doing  the  right  thing, 
that,  so  far  as  earthly  ingenuity  can  fix  it,  you  are  going 
to  the  right  place,  and  that  other  folks  aint.  Don't  you 
ever  let  anyone  set  you  against  respectability.  It's  the 
most  satisfying  thing  I  know  of  in  this  world — and  about 
the  cheapest. 

"  '  I  was  nearly  three  years  with  this  family,  and  was 
sorry  when  I  had  to  go.  I  should  never  have  left  if  I 
could  have  helped  it,  but  one  day  something  happened 
at  the  bank  which  necessitated  the  banker's  taking  a 
sudden  journey  to  Spain,  and,  after  that,  the  house  be- 
came a  somewhat  unpleasant  place  to  live  in.  Noisy, 
disagreeable  people  were  continually  knocking  at  the 
door  and  making  rows  in  the  passage  ;  and  at  night 
folks  threw  bricks  at  the  windows. 

" '  I  was  in  a  delicate  state  of  health  at  the  time,  and 
my  nerves  could  not  stand  it.  I  said  good-by  to  the 


i46 


NOVEL   NOTES, 


town,  and  making  my  way  back  into  the  country,  put  up 
with  a  country  family. 

"  '  They  were  great  swells,  but  I  should  have  preferred 


them  had  they  been  more  homely.  I  am  of  an  affection- 
ate disposition,  and  I  like  everyone  about  me  to  love  me. 
They  were  good  enough  to  me  in  their  distant  way, 
but  they  did  not  take  much  notice  of  me,  and  I  soon 
got  tired  of  lavishing  attentions  on  people  that  neither 
valued  nor  responded  to  them. 

'"From  these  people  I  went  to  a  retired  potato 
merchant.  It  was  a  social  descent,  but  a  rise  so  far 
as  comfort  and  appreciation  were  concerned.  They 
appeared  to  be  an  exceedingly  nice  family,  and  to  be 
extremely  fond  of  me.  I  say  they  "  appeared  "  to  be 
these  things,  because  the  sequel  proved  that  they  were 
neither.  Six  months  after  I  had  come  to  them,  they 
went  away  and  left  me.  They  never  asked  me  to  accom- 
pany them.  They  made  no  arrangements  for  me  to 
stay  behind.  They  evidently  did  not  care  what  became 
of  me.  Such  egotistical  indifference  to  the  claims  of 
friendship  I  had  never  before  met  with.  It  shook  my 
faith — never. too  robust — in  human  nature.  I  determined 


NOVEL  NOTES.  147 

that,  in  future,  no  one  should  have  the  opportunity  of 
disappointing  my  trust  in  them.  I  selected  my  present 
mistress  on  the  recommendation  of  a  gentleman  friend 
of  mine  who  had  formerly  lived  with  her.  He  said  she 
was  an  excellent  caterer.  The  only  reason  he  had  left 
her  was  that  she  expected  him  to  be  in  at  ten  each  night, 
and  that  hour  didn't  fit  in  with  his  other  arrangements. 
It  made  no  difference  to  me — as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do  not 
care  for  these  midnight  reunions  that  are  so  popular 
among  us.  There  are  always  too  many  cats  for  one 
properly  to  enjoy  one's  self,  and  sooner  or  later  a  rowdy 
element  is  sure  to  creep  in.  I  offered  myself  to  her,  and 
she  accepted  me  gratefully.  But  I  have  never  liked 
her,  and  never  shall.  She  is  a  silly  old  woman  and 
bores  me.  She  is,  however,  devoted  to  me,  and,  unless 
something  extra  attractive  turns  up,  I  shall  stick  to 
her. 

'"That,  my  dear,  is  the  story  of  my  life,  so  far  as  it 
has  gone.  I  tell  it  you  to  show  you  how  easy  it  is  to  be 
"  taken  in."  Fix  on  your  house,  and  mew  piteously  at 
the  back  door.  When  it  is  opened  run  in  and  rub  your- 
self against  the  first  leg  you 'come  across.  Rub  hard, 
and  look  up  confidingly.  Nothing  gets  round  human 
beings,  I  have  noticed,  quicker  than  con- 
fidence. They  don't  get  much  of  it,  and 
it  pleases  them.  Always  be  confiding.  At 
the  same  time  be  prepared  for  emergen- 
cies. If  you  are  still  doubtful  as  to  your 
reception,  try  and  get  yourself  slightly  wet. 
Why  people  should  prefer  a  wet  cat  to  a  jfijj  \  J' 
dry  one  I  have  never  been  able  to  un- 
derstand ;  but  that  a  wet  cat  is  practically  sure  of  being 
taken  in  and  gushed  over,  while  a  dry  cat  is  liable 
to  have  the  garden  hose  turned  upon  it,  is  an  undoubted 


I48  NOVEL   NOTES. 

fact.  Also,  if  you  can  possibly  manage  it,  and  it  is 
offered  you,  eat  a  bit  of  dry  bread.  The  Human  Race 
is  always  stirred  to  its  deepest  depths  by  the  sight  of  a 
cat  eating  a  bit  of  dry  bread.' 

"  My  friend's  black  Tom  profited  by  the  Chinchilla's 
wisdom.  A  catless  couple  had  lately  come  to  live  next 
door.  He  determined  to  adopt  them  on  trial.  Accord- 
ingly, on  the  first  rainy  day,  he  went  out  soon  after 
lunch  and  sat  for  four  hours  in  an  open  field.  In  the 
evening,  soaked  to  the  skin,  and  feeling  pretty  hungry, 

he  went  mew- 
ing to  their 
door.  One 
of  the  maids 
opened  it,  he 
rushed  under 
her  skirts  and 
rubbed  him- 
self against 

^ii  3HB^    ;  '   "  her  leS's-    she 
screamed, and 
down      came 
the  master 
and    the    mistress   to   know   what   was   the    matter. 
"  '  It's  a  stray  cat,  mum,'  said  the  girl. 
"  '  Turn  it  out,'  said  the  master. 
" '  Oh,  no,  don't,'  said  the  mistress. 
"  '  Oh,  poor  thing,  it's  wet,'  said  the  housemaid. 
" '  Perhaps  it's  hungry,'  said  the  cook. 
"  '  Try  it  with  a  bit  of  dry  bread,'  sneered  the  master,  who 
wrote  for  the  newspapers  and  thought  he  knew  everything. 
"  A  stale  crust  was  proffered.     The  cat  ate  it  greedily, 
and    afterward    rubbed    himself    gratefully   against   the 
man's   light   trousers. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  149 

"  This  made  the  man  ashamed  of  himself,  likewise  of 
his  trousers.  '  Oh,  well,  let  it  stop  if  it  wants  to,'  he 
said. 

"  So  the  cat  was  made  comfortable,  and  stayed  on. 

"  Meanwhile  its  own  family  were  seeking  for  it  high 
and  low.  They  had  not  cared  overmuch  for  it  while  they 
had  had  it ;  now  it  was  gone,  they  were  inconsolable. 
In  the  light  of  its  absence,  it  appeared  to  them  the  one 
thing  that  had  made  the  place  home.  The  shadows  of 
suspicion  gathered  round  the  case.  The  cat's  disappear- 
ance, at  first  regarded  as  a  mystery,  began  to  assume  the 
shape  of  a  crime.  Each  member  of  the  family  strongly 
suspected  every  other  member,  and  felt  it  to  be  his 
or  her  duty  to  discover  and  expose  them.  The  wife 
openly  accused  the  husband  of  never  having  liked  the 
animal,  and  more  than  hinted  that  he  and  the  gardener 
between  them  could  give  a  tolerably  truthful  account  of 
its  last  moments  ;  an  insinuation  that  the  husband  repu- 
diated with  a  warmth  that  only  added  credence  to  the 
original  surmise. 

"  The  bull-terrier  was  had  up  and  searchingly  exam- 
ined. Fortunately  for  him,  he  had  not  had  a  single 
fight  for  two  whole  days.  Had  any  recent  traces  of 
blood  been  detected  upon  him,  it  would  have  gone  hard 
with  him. 

"  The  person  who  suffered  most,  however,  was  the 
youngest  boy.  Three  weeks  before  he  had  dressed  the 
cat  in  doll's  clothes  and  taken  it  round  the  garden  in  the 
perambulator.  He  himself  had  forgotten  the  incident, 
but  Justice,  though  tardy,  was  on  his  track.  The  mis- 
deed was  suddenly  remembered  at  the  very  moment 
when  unavailing  regret  for  the  loss  of  the  favorite  was 
at  its  deepest,  so  that  to  box  his  ears  and  send  him,  then 
and  there,  straight  off  to  bed  was  felt  to  be  a  positive  relief. 


^5°  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  At  the  end  of  a  fortnight,  the  cat,  finding  he  had 
not,  after  all,  bettered  himself,  came  back.  The  family 
were  so  surprised  that  at  first  they  could  not  be  sure 
whether  he  was  flesh  and  blood,  or  a  spirit  come  to  com- 
fort them.  After  watching  him  eat  half  a  pound  of  raw 
steak,  they  decided  he  was  material,  and  caught  him  up 

and  hugged  him 
to  their  bosoms. 
For  a  week  they 
overfed  him  and 
made  much  of 
him.  Then,  the 
excitement  cool- 
ing, he  found 
himself  dropping 
back  into  his  old  position,  and  didn't  like  it,  and  went 
next  door  again. 

"  The  next-door  people  had  also  missed  him,  and  they 
likewise  gre'eted  his  return  with  extravagant  ebullitions 
of  joy. 

"  This  gave  the  cat  an  idea.  He  saw  that  his  game 
was  to  play  the  two  families  off  one  against  the  other ; 
which  he  did.  He  spent  an  alternate  fortnight  with 
each,  and  lived  like  a  fighting  cock.  His  return  was 
always  greeted  with  enthusiasm,  and  every  means  were 
adopted  to  induce  him  to  stay.  His  little  whims  were 
carefully  studied,  his  favorite  dishes  kept  in  constant 
readiness. 

"  The  destination  of  his  goings  leaked  out  at  length, 
and  then  the  two  families  quarreled  about  him  over  the 
fence.  My  friend  accused  the  newspaper  man  of  having 
lured  him  away.  The  newspaper  man  retorted  that  the 
poor  creature  had  come  to  his  door  wet  and  starving, 
and  added  that  he  would  be  ashamed  to  keep  an  animal 


NOVEL  NOTES.  151 

merely  to  ill-treat  it.  They  have  a  row  about  him  twice 
a  week  on  the  average.  It  will  probably  come  to  blows 
one  of  these  days." 

Jephson  appeared  much  surprised  by  this  story.  He 
remained  thoughtful  and  silent.  I  asked  him  if  he 
would  like  to  hear  any  more,  and  as  he  offered  no  active 
opposition  I  went  on.  (Maybe  he  was  asleep  ;  that  idea 
did  not  occur  to  me  at  the  time.) 

I  told  him  of  my  grandmother's  cat,  who,  after  living 
a  blameless  life  for  upward  of  eleven  years,  and  bringing 
up  a  family  of  something  like  sixty-six,  not  counting 
those  that  died  in  infancy  and  the  water-butt,  took  to 
drink  in  her  old  age,  and  was  run  over  while  in  a  state 
of  intoxication  (oh,  the  justice  of  it  !)  by  a  brewer's  dray. 
I  have  read  in  temperance  tracts  that  no  dumb  animal  will 
touch  a  drop  of  alcoholic  liquor.  My  advice  is,  if  you 
wish  to  keep  them  respectable,  don't  give  them  a  chance 

to  get  at  it.  I  know  a  pony But  never  mind  him  ; 

we  are  talking  about  my  grandmother's  cat. 

A  leaky  beer  tap  was  the  cause  of  her  downfall.  A 
saucer  used  to  be  placed  underneath  it  to  catch  the  drip- 
pings. One  day,  the  cat,  coming  in  thirsty,  and  finding 
nothing  else  to  drink,  lapped  up  a  little,  Hked  it,  and 
lapped  a  little  more,  went  away  for  half  an  hour,  and 
came  back  and  finished  the  saucerful;  then  sat  down 
beside  it,  and  waited  for  it  to  fill  again. 

From  that  day  till  the  hour  she  died,  I  don't  believe 
that  cat  was  ever  once  quite  sober.  Her  days  she  passed 
in  a  drunken  stupor  before  the  kitchen  fire.  Her  nights 
she  spent  in  the  beer  cellar. 

My  grandmother,  shocked  and  grieved  beyond  expres- 
sion, gave  up  her  barrel  and  adopted  bottles.  The  cat, 
thus  condemned  to  enforced  abstinence,  meandered 
about  the  house  for  a  day  and  a  half  in  a  disconsolate, 


15* 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


quarrelsome  mood.     Then  she  disappeared,  returning  at 

eleven  o'clock  as  tight  as  a  drum. 

Where  she  went,  and  how  she  managed  to  procure 
the  drink,  we  never  dis- 
covered ;  but  the  same 
programme  was  repeated 
every  day.  Some  time 
during  the  morning  she 
would  contrive  to  elude 
our  vigilance  and  escape; 
and  late  every  evening 
she  would  come  reeling 
home  across  the  fields  in 
a  condition  that  I  will  not 
sully  my  pen  by  attempt- 
ing to  describe. 

It  was  on  Saturday 
night  she  met  the  sad  end 
to  which  I  have  before 

alluded.     She  must  have  been    very  drunk,  for  the  man 

told  us  that,  in  consequence  of  the   darkness,  and   the 

fact  that  his 

horses     were 

tired,  he  was 

proceeding  at 

little    more 

than  a  snail's 

pace. 

I  think  my 

grandmother 

was    rather 

relieved    than 

otherwise.     She  had  been  very  fond   of  the  cat  at  one 

time,  but  its  recent  conduct  had  alienated  her  affection. 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


153 


We  children  buried  it  in  the  garden  under  the  mulberry 
tree,  but  the  old  lady  insisted  that  there  should  be  no 
tombstone,  not  even  a  mound  raised.  So  it  lies  there, 
unhonored,  in  a  drunkard's  grave. 

I  also  told  him  of  another  cat  our  family  had  once 


possessed.  She  was  the  mc*t  motherly  thing  I  have  ever 
known.  She  was  never  happy  without  a  family.  Indeed, 
I  cannot  remember  her  when  she  hadn't  a  family  in  one 
stage  or  another.  She  was  not  very  particular  what  sort 
of  a  family  it  was.  If  she  could  not  have  kittens,  then 
she  would  content  herself  with  puppies  or  rats.  Any- 
thing that  she  could  wash  and  feed  seemed  to  satisfy  her. 
I  believe  she  would  have  brought  up  chickens  if  we  had 
intrusted  them  to  her. 

All  her  brains  must  have  run  to  motherliness,  for  she 
hadn't  much  sense.  She  could  never  tell  the  difference 
between  her  own  children  and  other  people's.  She 
thought  everything  young  was  a  kitten.  We  once  mixed 


154  NOVEL  NOTES. 

up  a  spaniel  puppy  that  had  lost  its  own  mother  among 
her  progeny.  I  shall  never  forget  her  astonishment 
when  it  first  barked.  She  boxed  both  its  ears,  and  then 
sat  looking  down  at  it  with  an  expression  of  indignant 
sorrow  that  was  really  touching. 

"  You're  going  to  be  a  credit  to  your  mother,"  she 
seemed  to  be  saying  ;  "  you're  a  nice  comfort  to  any- 
one's old  age,  you  are,  making  a  row  like  that.  And 
look  at  your  ears  flopping  all  over  your  face.  I  don't 
know  where  you  pick  up  such  ways." 

He  was  a  good  little  dog.  He  did  try  to  mew,  and  he 
did  try  to  wash  his  face  with  his  paw,  and  to  keep  his 
tail  still,  but  his  success  was  not  commensurate  with  his 
will.  I  do  not  know  which  was  the  sadder  to  reflect 
upon,  his  efforts  to  become  a  creditable  kitten,  or  his 
foster-mother's  despair  of  ever  making  him  one. 

Later  on  we  gave  her  a  baby  squirrel  to  rear.  She  was 
nursing  a  family  of  her  own  at  the  time,  but  she  adopted 
him  with  enthusiasm,  under  the  impression  that  he  was 
another  kitten,  though  she  could  not  quite  make  out 
how  she  had  come  to  overlook  him.  He  soon  became 
her  prime  favorite.  She  liked  his  color,  and  took  a 
mother's  pride  in  his  tail.  What  troubled  her  was  that  it 
would  cock  up  over  his  head.  She  would  hold  it  down 
with  one  paw,  and  lick  it  by  the  half-hour  together,  try- 
ing to  make  it  set  properly.  But  the  moment  she  let  it 
go  up  it  would  cock  again.  I  have  heard  her  cry  with 
•vexation  because  of  this. 

One  day  a  neighboring  cat  came  to  see  her,  and  the 
squirrel  was  clearly  the  subject  of  their  talk. 

"  It's  a  good  color,"  said  the  friend,  looking  critically 
at  the  supposed  kitten,  who  was  sitting  up  on  his 
haunches  combing  his  whiskers,  and  saying  the  only  truth- 
fully pleasant  thing  about  him  that  she  could  think  of. 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


'55 


"  He's  a  lovely  color,"  exclaimed  our  cat  proudly. 
"  I  don't  like  his  legs  much,"  remarked  the  friend. 
"No,"  responded  his  mother  thoughtfully,  "you're 


right  there.  His  legs  are  his  weak  point.  I  can't  say  I 
think  much  of  his  legs  myself." 

"  Maybe  they'll  fill  out  later  on,"  suggested  the  friend 
kindly. 

"  Oh,  I  hope  so,"  replied  the  mother,  regaining  her 
momentarily  dashed  cheerfulness.  "  Oh,  yes,  they'll 
come  all  right  in  time.  And  then  look  at  his  tail.  Now, 
honestly,  did  you  ever  see  a  kitten  with  a  finer  tail  ?" 

"  Yes,  it's  a  good  tail,"  assented  the  other  ;  "but  why 
do  you  do  it  up  over  his  head  ?  " 

"  I  don't,"  answered  our  cat.  "  It  goes  that  way.  I 
can't  make  it  out.  I  suppose  it  will  come  straight  as  he 
gets  older." 

"  It  will  be  awkward  if  it  don't,"  said  the  friend. 

"  Oh,  but  I'm  sure  it  will,"  replied  our  cat.     "  I  must 


'56 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


lick  it  more.     It's  a  tail  that  wants  a  good  deal  of  lick- 
ing* you  can  see  that." 

And  for  hours  that  afternoon,  after  the  other  cat  had 
gone,  she  sat  trimming  it  ;  and,  at  the  end,  when  she 
lifted  her  paw  off  it,  and  it  flew  back  again  like  a  steel 
spring  over  the  squirrel's  head,  she  sat  and  gazed  at  it 
with  feelings  that  only  those  among  my  readers  who  have 
been  mothers  themselves  will  be  able  to  comprehend. 

"  What  have  I  done,"  she  seemed  to  say — "  what  have 
I  done  that  this  trouble  should  come  upon  me  ?  " 

Jephson  roused  himself  on  my  completion  of  this 
anecdote  and  sat  up. 

"  You  and  your  friends  appear  to  have  been  the  pos- 
sessors of  some  very  remarkable  cats,"  he  observed. 
"  Yes,"  I  answered,  "  our  family  has  been  singularly 
fortunate  in  its  cats." 

"Singularly  so," 
agreed  Jephson.  "  I 
have  never  met  but  one 
man  from  whom  I 
have  heard  more  won- 
derful cat  talk  than,  at 
one  time  or  another,  I 
have  from  you." 

"Oh,"  I  said,  not, 
perhaps,  without  a 
touch  of  jealousy  in  my 
voice,  "and  who  was 
he?" 

"  He  was  a  seafaring 
man,"  replied  Jephson. 
"  I  met  him  on  a  Hampstead  tram,  and   we  discussed 
the  subject  of  animal  sagacity. 

"  '  Yes,   sir,'   he  said,   '  monkevs   is  cute.     I've  come 


NOVEL  NOTES.  157 

across  monkeys  as  could  give  points  to  two  lubbers  I've 
sailed  under  ;  and  elephants  is  pretty  spry,  if  you  can 
believe  all  that's  told  of  'em.  I've  heard  some  tall  tales 
about  elephants.  And,  of  course,  dogs  has  their  heads 
screwed  on  all  right ;  I  don't  say  as  they  aint.  But 
what  I  do  say  is  :  that  for  straightfor'ard,  level-headed 
reasoning,  give  me  cats.  You  see,  sir,  a  dog,  he  thinks 
a  powerful  deal  of  a  man — never  was  such  a  cute  thing 
as  a  man,  in  a  dog's  opinion  ;  and  he  takes  good  care 
that  everybody  knows  it.  Naturally  enough,  we  says  a 
dog  is  the  most  intellectual  animal  there  is.  Now  a  cat, 
she's  got  her  own  opinion  about  human  beings.  She 
don't  say  much,  but  you  can  tell  enough  to  make  you 
anxious  not  to  hear  the  whole  of  it.  The  consequence 
is,  we  says  a  cat's  got  no  intelligence.  That's  where  we 
let  our  prejudice  steer  our  judgment  wrong.  In  a  mat- 
ter of  plain  common-sense,  there  aint  a  cat  living  as 
couldn't  take  the  lee  side  of  a  dog  and  fly  round  him. 
Now,  have  you  ever  noticed  a  dog  at  the  end  of  a  chain, 
trying  to  kill  a  cat  as  is  sitting  washing  her  face  three- 
quarters  of  an  inch  out  of  his  reach  ?  Of  course  you 
have.  Well,  who's  got  the  sense  out  of  those  two  ?  The 
cat  knows  that  it  aint  in  the  nature  of  steel  chains  to 
stretch.  The  dog,  who  ought,  you'd  think,  to  know  a 
durned  sight  more  about  'em  than  she  does,  is  sure  they 
will  if  you  only  bark  loud  enough. 

"  '  Then,  again,  have  you  ever  been  made  mad  by  cats 
screeching  in  the  night,  and  jumped  out  of  bed  and 
opened  the  window  and  yelled  at  them  ?  Did  they  ever 
budge  an  inch  for  that,  though  you  shrieked  loud  enough 
to  skeer  the  dead,  and  waved  your  arms  about  like  a 
man  in  a  play  ?  Not  they.  They've  turned  and  looked 
at  you,  that's  all.  "  Yell  away,  old  man,"  they've  said, 
"  we  like  to  hear  you  ;  the  more  the  merrier."  Then 


i58 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


what  have  you  done  ?  Why,  you've  snatched  up  a  hair- 
brush, or  a  boot,  or  a  candlestick,  and  made  as  if  you'd 
throw  it  at  them.  They've  seen  your  attitude,  they've 

seen  the  thing 
in  your  hand, 
but  they  aint 
moved  a  point. 
They  knew  as 
you  weren't  go- 
ing to  chuck  val- 
u  a  b  1  e  property 
out  of  the  window 
with  the  chance 
of  getting  it  lost 
or  spoiled. 
They've  got 
sense  themselves 
and  they  give  you 
credit  for  having  some.  If  you  don't  believe  that's  the 
reason,  you  try  showing  them  a  lump  of  coal,  or  half  a 
brick,  next  time — something  as  they  know  you  will  throw. 
Before  you're  ready  to  heave  it,  there  won't  be  a  cat 
within  aim. 

"  '  Then  as  to  judgment  and  knowledge  of  the  world, 
why  dogs  are  babies  to  'em.  Have  you  ever  tried  telling 
a  yarn  before  a  cat,  sir  ? ' 

"  I  replied  that  cats  had  often  been  present  during 
anecdotal  recitals  of  mine,  but  that,  hitherto,  I  had  paid 
no  particular  attention  to  their  demeanor. 

"  '  Ah,  well,  you  take  an  opportunity  of  doing  so  one 
day,  sir,'  answered  the  old  fellow  ;  '  it's  worth  the  experi- 
ment. If  you're  telling  a  story  before  a  cat,  and  she 
don't  get  uneasy  during  any  part  of  the  narrative, 
you  can  reckon  you've  got  hold  of  a  thing  as  it  will 


NOVEL   NOTES.  159 

be  safe  for  you   to   tell    to   the    Lord    Chief  Justice  of 
England. 

"'I've  got  a  messmate,'  he  continued;  'William 
Cooley  is  his  name.  We  call  him  Truthful  Billy.  He's 
as  good  a  seaman  as  ever  trod  quarter-deck  ;  but  when 
he  gets  spinning  yarns  he  aint  the  sort  of  man  as  I  could 
advise  you  to  rely  upon.  Well,  Billy,  he's  got  a  dog,  and 
I've  seen  him  sit  and  tell  yarns 
before  that  dog  that  would 
make  a  cat  squirm  out  of  its 
skin,  and  that  dog's  taken  'em 
in  and  believed  'em.  One  night, 
up  at  his  old  woman's,  Bill 
told  us  a  yarn,  by  the  side  of 
which  salt  junk  two  voyages  old 
would  pass  for  spring  chicken. 
I  watched  the  dog  to  see  how 
he  would  take  it.  He  lis- 
tened to  it  from  beginning  to  end  with  cocked  ears,  and 
never  so  much  as  blinked.  Every  now  and  then  he 
would  look  round  with  an  expression  of  astonishment  or 
delight  that  seemed  to  say  :  "  Wonderful,  isn't  it  ?  " 
"  Dear  me,  just  think  of  it !  "  "  Did  you  ever  !  "  "  Well, 
if  that  don't  beat  everything  !  "  He  was  a  chuckle- 
headed  dog  ;  you  could  have  told  him  anything. 

"  '  It  irritated  me  that  Bill  should  have  such  an  animal 
about  him  to  encourage  him,  and  when  he  had  finished 
I  said  to  him,  "  I  wish  you'd  tell  that  yarn  round  at  my 
quarters  one  evening." 

"  '  "  Why  ? "  said  Bill. 

"  '  "  Oh,  it's  just  a  fancy  of  mine,"  I  says.  I  didn't  tell 
him  I  was  wanting  my  old  cat  to  hear  it. 

"  '  "  Oh,  all  right,"  says  Bill,  "  you  remind  me."  He 
loved  yarning,  Billy  did. 


i6o 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


"  '  Next  night  but  one  he  slings  himself  up  in  my  cabin, 
and  I  does  so.     Nothing  loath,  off  he  starts.     There  was 

'////?//////  '  about  half  a 
dozen  of  us 
stretched 
round,  and 
the  cat  was 
sitting  before 
the  fire  fuss- 
ing itself  up. 
Before  Bill 
had  got  fairly 
under  way, 
she  stops 
washing  and 
looks  up  at 
me,  puzzled 
like,  as  mi>ch 

as  to  say,  "  What  have  we  got  here,  a  missionary  ? "     I 

signaled  to  her  to  keep  quiet,  and  Bill  went  on  with  his 

yarn.     When  he  got  to  the  part  about   the  sharks,  she 

turned  deliberately  round  and 

looked  at  him.     I  tell  you  there 

was  an   expression   of   disgust 

on   that    cat's    face  as   might 

have  made   a  traveling  Cheap 

Jack  feel   ashamed  of  himself. 

It  was  that  human,  I  give  you 

my  word,  sir,  I   forgot  for  the 

moment   as   the    poor    animal 

couldn't    speak.     I   could  see 

the  words  that  were  on  its  lips  : 

"  Why  don't  you  tell  us   you  swallowed    the  anchor  ? " 

and  I  sat  on  tenter-hooks   fearing  each  instant  that  she 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


161 


would  say  them  aloud.  It  was  a  relief  to  me  when  she 
turned  her  back  on  Bill. 

" '  For  a  few  minutes  she  sat  very  still,  and  seemed  to 
be  wrestling  with  herself  like.  I  never  saw  a  cat  more 
set  on  controlling  its  feelings,  or  that  seemed  to  suffer 
more  in  silence.  It  made  my  heart  ache  to  watch  it. 

"  '  At  last  Bill  came  to  the  point  where  he  and  the 
captain  between  'em  hold  the  shark's  mouth  open  while 
the  cabin  boy  dives  in  head  foremost,  and  fetches  up, 
undigested,  the  gold  watch  and  chain  as  the  bo'sun  was 
a-wearing  when  he  fell  overboard  ;  and  at  that  the  old 


cat  giv'd  a  screech,  and  rolled  over  on  her  side  with  her 
legs  in  the  air. 

"  '  I  thought  at  first  the  poor  thing  was  dead,  but  she 
rallied  after  a  bit,  and  it  seemed  as  though  she  had 
braced  herself  up  to  hear  the  thing  out. 

" '  But  a  little  further  on,  Bill  got  too  much  for  her 
again,  and  this  time  she  owned  herself  beat.  She  rose 
up  and  looked  at  us  :  "  You'll  excuse  me,  gentlemen," 
she  said — leastways  that  is  what  she  said  if  looks  go  for 
anything — "maybe  you're  used  to  this  sort  of  rubbish, 


1 62  NOVEL  NOTES. 

and  it  don't  grate  on  your  nerves.  With  me  it's  different. 
I  guess  I've  heard  as  much  of  this  fool's  talk  as  my  con- 
stitution will  stand,  and  if  it's  all  the  same  to  you  I'll  get 
outside  before  I'm  sick." 

" '  With  that  she  walked  up  to  the  door,  and  I  opened 
it  for  her,  and  she  went  out. 

" '  You  can't  fool  a  cat  with  talk  same  as  you  can  a 
dog.'  " 


CHAPTER  VII. 

JOES    man    ever    reform  ?      Balzac    says    he 
doesn't.      So  far  as  my  experience  goes  it 
agrees  with  that  of  Balzac — a  fact  the  ad. 
mirers  of  that  author  are  at  liberty  to  make 
what  use  of  they  please. 

When  I  was  young  and  accustomed  to  take  my  views 
of  life  from  people  who  were  older  than  myself,  and  who 
knew  better,  so  they  said,  I  used  to  believe  that  he  did. 
Examples  of  "  reformed  characters "  were  frequently 
pointed  out  to  me — indeed,  our  village,  situate  a  few 
miles  from  a  small  seaport  town,  seemed  to  be  peculiarly 
rich  in  such.  They  were,  from  all  accounts,  including 
their  own,  persons  who  had  formerly  behaved  with  quite 
unnecessary  depravity,  and  who,  at  the  time  I  knew 
them,  appeared  to  be  going  to  equally  objectionable 
lengths  in  the  opposite  direction.  They  invariably 
belonged  to  one  of  two  classes,  the  low-spirited  or  the 
aggressively  unpleasant.  They  said,  and  I  believed, 
that  fhey  were  happy  ;  but  I  could  not  help  reflecting 
how  very  sad  they  must  have  been  before  they  were 
happy. 

One  of  them,  a  small  meek-eyed  old  man  with  a  pip- 
ing voice,  had  been  exceptionally  wild  in  his  youth. 
What  had  been  his  special  villainy  I  could  never  dis- 
cover. People  responded  to  my  inquiries  by  saying 
that  he  had  been,  "  Oh,  generally  bad,"  and  increased 
my  longing  for  detail  by  adding  that  little  boys  ought 
not  to  want  to  know  about  such  things.  From  their 


i64 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


:« 


tone  and  manner  I  assumed  that  he  must  have  been  a 

pirate  at  the  very  least,  and   regarded  him  with  awe,  not 

unmingled  with  secret  admiration. 

Whatever  it  was,  he  had  been  saved  from  it  by  his 
wife,  a  bony  lady  of 
unprepossessing  a  p- 
pearance,  but  irre- 
proachable views. 

One  day  he  called  at 
our  house  for  some 
purpose  or  other,  and, 
being  left  alone  with 
him  for  a  few  minutes, 
I  took  the  opportunity 
of  interviewing  him  per- 
sonally on  the  subject. 
"  You  were  very 
wicked  once,  weren't 
you?"  I  said,  seeking 
by  emphasis  on  the 
"once"  to  mitigate 
what  I  felt  might  be  the 
disagreeable  nature  of 
the  question. 

To  my  intense  sur- 
prise, a  gleam  of  shame- 
ful glory  lit  up  his 
wizened  face,  and  a 

sound  which  I  tried  to  think  a  sigh,  but  which  sounded 

like  a   chuckle,    escaped  his  lips. 

"  Aye,"  he   replied  ;  "  I've   been  a  bit  of   a   spanker 

in  my  time." 

The  term  "spanker"  in  such  connection   puzzled  me. 

I   had   been    hitherto  led  to   regard   a   spanker   as   an 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


165 


eminently   conscientious   person,   especially   where   the 
shortcomings  of  other  people  were  concerned  ;  a  person 
who  labored    for  the  good  of   others.     That  the  word 
could  also  be  employed  to 
designate  a   sinful   party 
was  a  revelation  to  me. 

"  But  you  are  good 
now,  aren't  you  ?  "  I  con- 
tinued, dismissing  further 
reflection  upon  the  ety- 
mology of  "  spanker  "  to 
a  more  fitting  occasion. 

"  Aye,  aye,"  he  an- 
swered, his  countenance 
resuming  its  customary 
aspect  of  resigned  melan- 
choly. "I  be  a  brand 
plucked  from  the  burning, 
I  be.  There  beant  much 
wrong  wi'  Deacon  Saw- 
yers, now." 

"  And  it  was  your  wife 
that  made  you  good, 
wasn't  it?"  I  persisted, 
determined,  now  that  I  had  started  this  investigation,  to 
obtain  confirmation  at  first  hand  on  all  points. 

At  the  mention  of  his  wife  his  features  became  sud- 
denly transformed.  Glancing  hurriedly  round,  to  make 
sure,  apparently,  that  no  one  but  myself  was  within 
hearing,  he  leaned  across  and  hissed  these  words  into 
my  ear— I  have  never  forgotten  them,  there  was  a  ring 
of  such  evident  sincerity  about  them: 

"  I'd  like  to  skin  her,  I'd  like  to  skin  her  alive." 

It  struck  me,  even  in  the  light  of  my  then  limited 


1 66  NOVEL   NOTES. 

judgment,  as  an  unregenerate  wish  ;  and  thus  early  my 
faith  in  the  possibility  of  man's  reformation  received  the 
first  of  those  many  blows  that  have  resulted  in  shattering 
it. 

Nature,  whether  human  or  otherwise,  was  not  made  to 
be  reformed.  You  can  develop,  you  can  check,  but  you 
cannot  alter  it. 

You  can  take  a  small  tiger  and  train  it  to  sit  on  a 
hearthrug  and  to  lap  milk,  and  so  long  as  you  provide  it 
with  hearthrugs  to  lie  on  and  sufficient  milk  to  drink,  it 
will  purr  and  behave  like  an  affectionate  domestic  pet. 
But  it  is  a  tiger,  with  all  a  tiger's  instincts,  and  its  prog- 
eny to  the  end  of  all  time  will  be  tigers. 

In  the  same  way  you  can  take  an  ape  and  develop  it 
through  a  few  thousand  generations  until  it  loses  its  tail 
and  becomes  an  altogether  superior  ape.  You  can  go 
on  developing  it  through  still  a  few  more  thousands  of 
generations  until  it  gathers  to  itself  out  of  the  waste 
vapors  of  eternity  an  intellect  and  a  soul,  by  the  aid  of 
which  it  is  enabled  to  keep  the  original  apish  nature 
more  or  less  under  control. 

But  the  ape  is  still  there,  and  always  will  be,  and  every 
now  and  again,  when  Constable  Civilization  turns  his 
back  for  a  moment,  as  during  "Spanish  Furies,"  or  Sep- 
tember massacres,  or  Western  mob  rule,  it  creeps  out 
and  bites  and  tears  at  quivering  flesh,  or  plunges  its 
hairy  arms  elbow  deep  in  blood,  or  dances  round  a  burn- 
ing nigger. 

I  knew  a  man  once— or,  rather,  I  knew  of  a  man — 
who  was  a  confirmed  drunkard.  Fie  became  and  con- 
tinued a  drunkard,  not  through  weakness,  but  through 
will.  When  his  friends  remonstrated  with  him,  he  told 
them  to  mind  their  own  business,  and  to  let  him  mind 
his.  If  he  saw  any  reason  for  not  getting  drunk  he 


NOVEL  NOTES.  167 

would  give  it  up.  Meanwhile  he  liked  getting  drunk, 
and  he  meant  to  get  drunk  as  often  as  possible. 

He  went  about  it  deliberately,  and  did  it  thoroughly. 
For  nearly  ten  years,  so  it  was  reported,  he  never  went 
to  bed  sober.  This  may  be  an  exaggeration — it  would 
be  a  singular  report  were  it  not — but  it  can  be  relied 
upon  as  sufficiently  truthful  for  all  practical  purposes. 

Then  there  came  a  day  when  he  did  see  a  reason  for 
not  getting  drunk.  He  signed  no  pledge,  he  took  no 
oath.  He  said,  "  I  will  never  touch  another  drop  of 
drink,"  and  for  twenty-six  years  he  kept  his  word. 

At  the  end  of  that  time  a  combination  of  circumstances 
occurred  that  made  life  troublesome  to  him,  so  that  he 
desired  to  be  rid  of  it  altogether.  He  was  a  man  accus- 
tomed, when  he  desired  a  thing  within  his  reach,  to 
stretch  out  his  hand  and  take  it.  He  reviewed  the  case 
calmly,  and  decided  to  commit  suicide. 

If  the  thing  were  to  be  done  at  all,  it  would  be  best, 
for  reasons  that  if  set  forth  would  make  this  a  long  story, 
it  should  be  done  that  very  night,  and,  if  possible,  before 
eleven  o'clock,  which  was  the  earliest  hour  a  certain  per- 
son could  arrive  from  a  certain  place. 

It  was  then  four  in  the  afternoon.  He  attended  to 
some  necessary  business,  and  wrote  some  necessary 
letters.  This  occupied  him  until  seven.  He  then  called 
a  cab  and  drove  to  a  small  hotel  in  the  suburbs,  engaged 
a  private  room,  and  ordered  up  materials  for  the  making 
of  the  particular  punch  that  had  been  the  last  beverage 
he  had  got  drunk  on  six-and-twenty  years  ago. 

For  three  hours  he  sat  there  drinking  steadily,  with 
his  watch  before  him.  At  half-past  ten  he  rang  the  bell, 
paid  his  bill,  came  home,  and  cut  his  throat. 

For  a  quarter  of  a  century  people  had  been  calling 
that  man  a  "  reformed  character."  His  character  had 


1 68  NOVEL  NOTES. 

not  reformed  one  jot.  The  craving  for  drink  had  never 
died.  For  twenty-six  years  he  had,  being  a  great  man, 
held  it  gripped  by  the  throat.  When  all  things  became 
a  matter  of  indifference  to  him,  he  loosened  his  grasp, 
and  the  evil  instinct  rose  up  within  him  as  strong  on  the 
day  he  died  as  on  the  day  he  forced  it  down. 

That  is  all  a  man  can  do,  pray  for  strength  to  crush 
down  the  evil  that  is  in  him,  and  to  keep  it  held  down 
day  after  day.  I  never  hear  washy  talk  about  "  changed 
characters  "  and  "  reformed  natures  "  but  I  think  of  a 
sermon  I  once  heard  at  a  Wesleyan  revivalist  meeting 
in  the  Black  Country. 

"  Ah  !  my  friends,  we've  all  of  us  got  the  devil  inside 
us.  I've  got  him,  you've  got  him,"  cried  the  preacher — 
he  was  an  old  man  with  long  white  hair  and  beard,  and 
wild,  fighting  eyes.  Most  of  the  preachers  who  came 
"  reviving,"  as  it  was  called,  through  that  district,  had 
those  eyes.  Some  of  them  needed  "  reviving "  them- 
selves, in  quite  another  sense,  before  they  got  clear  out 
of  it.  I  am  speaking  now  of  more  than  thirty  years  ago. 

"  Ah  !  so  us  have — so  us  have,"  came  the  response. 

"  And  you  carn't  get  rid  of  him,"  continued  the 
speaker. 

"  Not  of  oursel's,"  ejaculated  a  fervent  voice  at  the 
end  of  the  room,  "  but  the  Lord  will  help  us." 

The  old  preacher  turned  on  him  almost  fiercely  : 

"  But  th'  Lord  woan't,"  he  shouted  ;  "  doan't  'ee 
reckon  on  that,  lad.  Ye've  got  him  an'  ye've  got  to 
keep  him.  Ye  carn't  get  rid  of  him.  Th'  Lord  doan't 
mean  'ee  to." 

Here  there  broke  forth  murmurs  of  angry  disapproval, 
but  the  old  fellow  went  on,  unheeding. 

"  It  arn't  good  for  'ee  to  get  rid  of  him.  Ye've  just 
got  to  hug  him  tight.  Doan't  let  him  go.  Hold  him 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


169 


I  tell  'ee  it's  good,  healthy 


fast,  and — LAM  INTO  HIM. 
Christian  exercise." 

We  had  been  discussing  the  subject  with  reference  to 
our  hero.  It  had  been  sug- 
gested by  Brown  as  an  unhack- 
neyed idea,  and  one  lending 
itself,  therefore,  to  comparative 
freshness  of  treatment,  that  our 
hero  should  be  a  thorough- 
paced scamp. 

Jephson    seconded    the  pro- 
posal,   for   the   reason   that   it 
would  the  better  enable  us  to 
accomplish  artistic  work.     He 
was     of    opinion     that    we 
should  be   more  sure  of  our 
ground  in  drawing  a   villain 
than    in  attempting   to  por- 
tray a  good  man. 

MacShaughnassy  thirded 
(if  I  may  coin  what  has  often 
appeared  to  me  to  be  a  much 
needed  word)  the  motion 
with  ardor.  He  was  tired,  he  said,  of  the  crystal-hearted, 
noble-thinking  young  man  of  fiction.  Besides,  it  made 
bad  reading  for  the  "young  person."  It  gave  her  false 
ideas,  and  made  her  dissatisfied  with  mankind  as  he 
really  is. 

And,  thereupon,  he  launched  forth  and  sketched  us 
his  idea  of  a  hero,  with  reference  to  whom  I  can  only 
say  that  I  should  not  like  to  meet  him  on  a  dark  night. 
Brown,  our  one  earnest  member,  begged  us  to  be  reason- 
able, and  reminded  us,  not  for  the  first  time,  and  not, 
perhaps,  altogether  unnecessarily,  that  these  meetings 


f 


HOLD    HIM    FAST. 


170 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


were  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  business,  not  of 
talking  nonsense.  Thus  adjured,  we 
attacked  the  subject  conscientiously. 

Brown's   idea     was    that     the    man 
should  be  an  out   and  out   blackguard, 
until   about   the   middle  of 
/      the  book,  when  some  event 
should  transpire  that  would 
have    the     effect    of    com- 
pletely reforming  him.    This 
naturally  brought  the  discus- 
sion  down    to 
the    question 
with    which    I 
have     c  o  m- 
menced    this 
chapter :  Does 
man    ever   re- 
form? I  argued 
in     the    nega- 
tive, and  gave 
for  my   disbe- 
I   have    set 
here.      Mac- 
on    the    other 
tended  that  he 
stanced      the 
self — a     man 
early  days,  so 
had     been    a 
i  m  pr  actica- 
entirely     wilh- 
I     maintained 
merely  an  ex- 


t  h  e  reasons 
lief  much  as 
them  forth 
Shaughnass)r, 
hand,  con- 
did,  and  in- 
case of  him- 
who,  in  his 
h  e  asserted, 
scatterbrained, 
ble  person, 
out  stability, 
that  this  was 


NOVEL   KOTES.  171 

ample  of  enormous  will  power  enabling  a  man  to  over- 
come and  rise  superior  to  the  defects  of  character  with 
which  nature  had  handicapped  him. 

"  My  opinion  of  you,"  I  said,  "  is  that  you  are  natur- 
ally a  hopelessly  irresponsible,  well-meaning  ass.  But," 
I  continued  quickly,  seeing  his  hand  reaching  out  to- 
ward a  complete  Shakspere  in  one  volume  that  lay 
upon  the  piano,  "  your  mental  capabilities  are  of  such 
extraordinary  power  that  you  can  disguise  this  fact,  and 
make  yourself  appear  a  man  of  sense  and  wisdom." 

Brown  agreed  with  me  that  in  MacShaughnassy's  case 
traces  of  the  former  dispositions  were  clearly  apparent, 
but  pleaded  that  the  illustration  was  an  unfortunate  one, 
and  that  it  ought  not  to  have  weight  in  the  discussion. 

"  Seriously  speaking,"  said  he,  "  don't  you  think  that 
there  are  some  experiences  great  enough  to  break  up 
and  re-form  a  man's  nature  ?  " 

"  To  break  up,"  I  replied,  "  yes,  but  to  re-form,  no. 
Passing  through  a  great  experience  may  shatter  a  man, 
or  it  may  strengthen  a  man,  just  as  passing  through  a 
furnace  may  melt  or  purify  metal,  but  no  furnace  ever 
lit  upon  this  earth  can  change  a  bar  of  gold  into  a  bar  of 
lead,  or  a  bar  of  lead  into  one  of  gold." 

I  asked  Jephson  what  he  thought.  He  did  not  con- 
sider the  bar  of  gold  simile  a  good  one.  He  held  that 
a  man's  character  was  not  an  immutable  element.  He 
likened  it  to  a  drug — poison  or  elixir— compounded  by 
each  man  for  himself  from  the  pharmacopoeia  of  all 
things  known  to  life  and  time,  and  saw  no  impossibility, 
though  some  improbability,  in  the  glass  being  flung  aside 
and  a  fresh  draught  prepared  with  pain  and  labor. 

"  Well,"  I  said,  "  let  us  put  the  case  practically  ;  did 
you  ever  know  a  man's  character  to  change  ?  " 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  "I  did  know  a  man  whose  char- 


i?2  NOVEL  NOTES. 

acter  seemed  to  me  to  be  completely  changed  by  an 
experience  that  happened  to  him.  It  may,  as  you  say, 
only  have  been  that  he  was  shattered,  or  that  the  lesson 
may  have  taught  him  to  keep  his  natural  disposition  ever 
under  control.  The  result,  in  any  case,  was  striking." 

We  asked  him  to  give  us  the  history  of  the  case,  and 
he  did  so. 

"  He  was  a  friend  of  some  cousins  of  mine,"  Jephson 
began,  "  people  I  used  to  see  a  good  deal  of  in  my 
undergraduate  days.  When  I  met  him  first  he  was  a 
young  fellow  of  twenty-six,  strong  mentally  and  physi- 
cally, and  of  a  stern  and  stubborn  nature  that  those  who 
liked  him  called  masterful,  and  that  those  who  disliked 
him — a  more  numerous  body — termed  tyrannical.  When 
I  saw  him  three  years  later,  he  was  an  old  man  of  twenty- 
nine,  gentle  and  yielding  beyond  the  border-line  of 
weakness,  mistrustful  of  himself  and  considerate  of 
others  to  a  degree  that  was  often  unwise.  Formerly,  his 
anger  had  been  a  thing  very  easily  and  frequently 
aroused.  Since  the  change  of  which  I  speak,  I  have 
never  known  the  shade  of  anger  to  cross  his  face  but 
once.  In  the  course  of  a  walk,  one  day,  we  came  upon 
a  young  rough  terrifying  a  small  child  by  pretending  to 
set  a  dog  at  her.  He  seized  the  boy  with  a  grip  that 
almost  choked  him,  and  administered  to  him  a  punish- 
ment that  seemed  to  me  altogether  out  of  proportion  to 
the  crime,  brutal  though  it  was. 

"  I  remonstrated  with  him  when  he  rejoined  me. 

" '  Yes,'  he  replied  apologetically  ;  'I  suppose  I'm  a 
hard  judge  of  some  follies.'  And,  knowing  what  his 
haunted  eyes  were  looking  at,  I  said  no  more. 

"  He  was  junior  partner  in  a  large  firm  of  tea  brokers 
in  the  City.  There  was  not  much  for  him  to  do  in  the 
London  office,  and  when,  therefore,  as  the  result  of  some 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


173 


mortgage  transactions,  a  South  Indian  tea  plantation 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  firm,  it  was  suggested  that  he 
should  go  out  and  take  the  management  of  it.  The 
plan  suited  him  admirably.  He  was  a  man  in  every  way 
qualified  to  lead  a  rough  life  ;  to  face  a  by  no  means 
contemptible  amount  of  difficulty  and  danger,  to  govern 
a  small  army  of  native  workers  more  amenable  to  fear 
than  to  affection.  Such  a  life,  demanding  thought  and 
action,  would  afford  his  strong  nature  greater  interest 
and  enjoyment  than  he  could  ever  hope  to  obtain  amid 
the  cramped  surroundings  of  civilization. 

"  Only  one  thing  could  in  reason  have  been  urged 
against  the  arrangement  ; 
that  thing  was  his  wife. 
She  was  a  fragile,  deli- 
cate girl  whom  he  had 
married  in  obedience  to 
that  instinct  of  attraction 
toward  the  opposite  which 
Nature,  for  the  purpose 
of  maintaining  her  aver- 
age, has  implanted  in  our 
breasts — a  timid,  meek- 
eyed  creature,  one  of 
those  women  to  whom 
death  is  less  terrible  than 
danger,  and  fate  easier  to 
face  than  fear.  Such 
women  have  been  known 
to  run  screaming  from  a 
mouse  and  to  meet  mar- 

"SHE    WAS    A    FKAGILK,    UEUILA1H    O1KL» 

tyrdom   with    heroism. 

They  can  no  more  keep  their   nerves    from   trembling 

than  an  aspen  tree  can  stay  the  quivering  of  its  leaves. 


174  NOVEL   NOTES. 

"  That  she  was  totally  unfitted  for,  and  would  be 
made  wretched  by  the  life  to  which  his  acceptance  of 
the  post  would  condemn  her,  might  have  readily  occurred 
to  him  had  he  stopped  to  consider  for  a  moment  her 
feelings  in  the  matter.  But  to  view  a  question  from  any 
other  standpoint  than  his  own  was  not  his  habit.  That 
he  loved  her  passionately  in  his  way,  as  a  thing  belong- 
ing to  himself,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  but  it  was  with 
the  love  that  such  men  have  for  the  dog  they  will 
thrash,  the  horse  they  will  spur  to  a  broken  back.  To 
consult  her  on  the  subject  never  entered  his  head.  He 
informed  her  one  day  of  his  decision  and  of  the  date  of 
their  sailing,  and,  handing  her  a  handsome  check,  told 
her  to  purchase  all  things  necessary  to  her,  and  to  let 
him  know  if  she  needed  more  ;  and  she,  loving  him  with 
a  doglike  devotion  that  was  not  good  for  him,  opened 
her  big  eyes  a  little  wider,  but  said  nothing.  She 
thought  much  about  the  coming  change  to  herself,  how- 
ever, and,  when  nobody  was  by,  she  would  cry  softly  ; 
then,  hearing  his  footsteps,  would  hastily  wipe  away  the 
traces  of  her  tears,  and  go  to  meet  him  with  a  smile. 

"  Now,  her  timidity  and  nervousness,  which  at  home 
had  been  a  butt  for  mere  chaff,  became,  under  the  new 
circumstances  of  their  life,  a  serious  annoyance  to  the 
man.  A  woman  who  seemed  unable  to  repress  a  scream 
whenever  she  turned  and  saw  in  the  gloom  a  pair  of 
piercing  eyes  looking  out  at  her  from  a  dusky  face,  who 
was  liable  to  drop  off  her  horse  with  fear  at  the  sound  of 
a  wild  beast's  roar  a  mile  off,  and  who  would  turn  white 
and  limp  with  horror  at  the  mere  sight  of  a  snake,  was 
not  a  companionable  person  to  live  with  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Indian  jungles. 

"  He  himself  was  entirely  without  fear,  and  could  not 
understand  it.  To  him  it  was  pure  affectation.  He  had 


A   PAIR   OF  PIHKCING   EYES   BOOKING   OUT   AT   HER   FROM    A    DUSKY    FACE, 


176  NOVEL   NOTES. 

a  muddled  idea,  common  to  men  of  his  stamp,  that 
women  assume  nervousness  because  they  think  it  pretty 
and  becoming  to  them,  and  that  if  one  could  only  con- 
vince them  of  the  folly  of  it  they  might  be  induced  to 
lay  it  aside,  in  the  same  way  that  they  lay  aside  mincing 
steps  and  simpering  voices.  A  man  who  prided  himself, 
as  he  did,  upon  his  knowledge  of  horses,  might,  one 
would  think,  have  grasped  a  truer  notion  of  the  nature 
of  nervousness,  which  is  a  mere  matter  of  temperament. 
But  the  man  was  a  fool. 

"  The  thing  that  vexed  him  most  was  her  horror  of 
snakes.  He  was  unblessed — or  uncursed,  whichever  you 
may  prefer — with  imagination  of  any  kind.  There  was 
no  special  enmity  between  him  and  the  seed  of  the  ser- 
pent. A  creature  that  crawled  upon  its  belly  was  no 
more  terrible  to  him  than  a  creature  that  walked  upon 
its  legs  ;  indeed,  less  so,  for  he  knew  that,  as  a  rule, 
there  was  less  danger  to  be  apprehended  from  them.  A 
reptile  is  only  too  eager  at  all  times  to  escape  from  man. 
Unless  attacked  or  frightened,  it  will  make  no  onset. 
Most  people  are  content  to  acquire  their  knowledge  of 
this  fact  from  the  natural  history  books.  He  had 
proved  it  for  himself.  His  servant,  an  old  sergeant  of 
dragoons,  has  told  me  that  he  has  seen  him  stop  with 
his  face  six  inches  from  the  head  of  a  hooded  cobra,  and 
stand  watching  it  through  his  eye-glass  as  it  crawled 
away  from  him,  knowing  that  one  touch  of  its  fangs 
would  mean  death  from  which  there  could  be  no  possi- 
ble escape.  That  any  reasoning  being  should  be  in- 
spired with  terror — sickening,  deadly  terror — by  such 
pitifully  harmless  things,  seemed  to  him  monstrous  ; 
and  he  determined  to  try  and  cure  her  of  her  fear  of  them. 

"  He  succeeded  in  doing  this  eventually  somewhat 
more  thoroughly  than  he  had  anticipated,  but  it  left  a 


NOVEL   NOTES.  177 

terror  in  his  own  eyes  that  has  not  gone  out  of  them  to 
this  day,  and  that  never  will. 

"  One  evening,  riding  home  through  a  part  of  the 
jungle  not  far  from  his  bungalow,  he  heard  a  soft,  low 
hiss  close  to  his  ear,  and,  looking  up,  saw  a  python 
swing  itself  from  the  branch  of  a  tree  and  make  off 
through  the  long  grass.  He  had  been  out  antelope 
shooting,  and  his  loaded  rifle  hung  by  his  stirrup. 
Springing  from  the  frightened  horse,  he  was  just  in  time 
to  get  a  shot  at  the  creature  before  it  disappeared.  He 
had  hardly  expected,  under  the  circumstances,  to  even 
hit  it.  By  chance  the  bullet  struck  it  at  the  junction  of 
the  vertebrae  with  the  head,  and  killed  it  instantly.  It 
was  a  well-marked  specimen,  and,  except  for  the  small 
wound  the  bullet  had  made,  quite  uninjured.  He  picked 
it  up,  and  hung  it  across  the  saddle,  intending  to  take  it 
home  and  preserve  it. 

"  Galloping  along,  glancing  down  every  now  and  again 
at  the  huge,  hideous  thing  swaying  and  writhing  in  front 
of  him  almost  as  if  still  alive,  a  brilliant  idea  occurred  to 
him.  He  would  use  this  dead  reptile  to  cure  his  wife 
of  her  fear  of  living  ones.  He  would  fix  matters  so  that 
she  should  see  it,  and  think  it  was  alive,  and  be  terrified 
by  it  ;  then  he  would  show  her  that  she  had  been  fright- 
ened by  a  mere  dead  thing,  and  she  would  feel  ashamed 
of  herself,  and  be  healed  of  her  folly.  It  was  the  sort  of 
idea  that  would  occur  to  a  fool. 

"  When  he  reached  home,  he  took  the  dead  snake  into 
his  smoking  room  ;  then,  locking  the  door,  the  idiot  set 
out  his  prescription.  He  arranged  the  monster  in  a  very 
natural  and  lifelike  position.  It  appeared  to  be  crawl- 
ing from  the  open  window  across  the  floor,  and  anyone 
coming  into  the  room  suddenly  could  hardly  avoid  tread- 
ing on  it.  It  was  very  cleverly  done. 


1 78  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  That  finished,  he  picked  out  a  book  from  the  shelves, 
opened  it,  and  laid  it  face  downward  upon  the  couch. 
When  he  had  completed  all  things  to  his  satisfaction  he 


unlocked  the  door  and  came  out  very  pleased  with  him- 
self. 

"  After  dinner  he  lit  a  cigar  and  sat  smoking  a  while 
in  silence. 

"'Are  you  feeling  tired?*  he  said  to  her  at  length, 
with  a  smile. 

"  She  laughed,  and  calling  him  a  lazy  old  thing,  asked 
what  it  was  he  wanted. 

" '  Only  my  novel  that  I  was  reading.  I  left  it  in 
my  den.  Do  you  mind?  You  will  find  it  open  on  the 
couch  ? ' 

"  She  sprang  up  and  ran  lightly  to  the  door. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  179 

"  As  she  paused  there  for  a  moment  to  look  back  at 
him  and  ask  the  name  of  the  book,  he  thought  how 
pretty  and  how  sweet  she  was  ;  and  for  the  first  time  a 
faint  glimmer  of  the  true  nature  of  the  thing  he  was 
doing  forced  itself  into  his  brain. 

"  '  Never  mind,'  he  said,  half  rising,  '  I'll '  then, 

enamored  of  the  brilliancy  of  his  plan,  checked  himself  ; 
and  she  was  gone. 

"  He  heard  her  footsteps  passing  along  the  matted  pas- 
sage, and  smiled  to  himself.  He  thought  the  affair  was 
going  to  be  rather  amusing.  One  finds  it  difficult  to 
pity  him,  even  now,  when  one  thinks  of  it. 

"  The  smoking-room  door  opened  and  closed  and  he 
still  sat  gazing  dreamily  at  the  ash  of  his  cigar,  and 
smiling. 

"  One  moment,  perhaps  two  passed,  but  the  time 
seemed  much  longer.  The  man  blew  the  gray  cloud 
from  before  his  eyes  and  waited.  Then  he  heard  what 
he  had  been  expecting  to  hear — a  piercing  shriek. 
Then  another,  which,  expecting  to  hear  the  clanging  of 
the  distant  door  and  the  scurrying  of  her  footsteps  flying 
back  along  the  passage,  puzzled  him,  so  that  the  smile 
died  away  from  his  lips. 

"  Then  another,  and  another,  and  another,  shriek  after 
shriek. 

"The  native  servant,  gliding  noiselessly  about  the 
room,  laid  down  the  thing  that  was  in  his  hand  and 
moved  instinctively  toward  the  door.  The  man  started 
up  and  held  him  back. 

" '  Keep  where  you  are,'  he  said  hoarsely.  "  It  is 
nothing.  Your  mistress  is  frightened,  that  is  all.  She 
must  learn  to  get  over  this  folly.'  Then  he  listened  again, 
and  the  shrieks  ended  with  what  sounded  curiously  like  a 
smothered  laugh  ;  and  there  came  a  sudden  silence. 


180  NOVEL   NOTES. 

"  And  out  of  that  bottomless  silence,  Fear  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  came  to  the  man,  and  he  and  the  dusky 
servant  looked  at  each  other  with  eyes  in  which  there 
was  a  strange  likeness ;  and  by  a  common  instinct 
moved  together  toward  the  place  where  the  silence  came 
from. 

"  When  the  man  opened  the  door  he  saw  three  things  : 
one  was  the  dead  python,  lying  where  he  had  left  it ;  the 
second  was  a  live  python,  its  comrade  apparently,  slowly 
crawling  round  it  ;  the  third,  a  crushed,  bloody  heap  in 
the  middle  of  the  floor. 

"  He  himself  remembered  nothing  more  until,  weeks 
afterward,  he  opened  his  eyes  in  a  darkened,  unfamiliar 
place,  but  the  native  servant,  before  -he  fled  screaming 
from  the  house,  saw  his  master  fling  himself  upon  the 
living  serpent  and  grasp  it  with  his  hands,  and  when, 
later  on,  others  burst  into  the  room  and  caught  him, 
staggering,  in  their  arms,  they  found  the  second  python 
with  its  head  torn  off. 

"  That  is  the  incident  that  changed  the  character  of 
my  man — if  it  be  changed,"  concluded  Jephson.  "  He 
told  it  me  one  night  as  we  sat  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer, 
returning  from  Bombay.  He  did  not  spare  himself. 
He  told  me  the  story,  much  as  I  have  told  it  to  you,  but 
in  an  even,  monotonous  tone,  free  from  emotion  of  any 
kind.  I  asked  him,  when  he  had  finished,  how  he  could 
bear  to  recall  it. 

" '  Recall  it !  '  he  replied,  with  a  slight  accent  of  sur- 
prise ;  '  it  is  always  with  me.'  " 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

J1NE  day  we  spoke  of  crime  and  criminals. 
We  had  discussed  the  possibility  of  a  novel 
without  a  villain,  but  had  decided  that  it 
would  be  uninteresting. 
"  It  is  a  terribly  sad  reflection,"  remarked  MacShaugh- 
nassy,  musingly  ;  "  but  what  a  desperately  dull  place 
this  earth  would  be  if  it  were  not  for  our  friends  the  bad 
people.  Do  you  know,"  he  continued,  "when  I  hear  of 
people  going  about  the  world  trying  to  reform  everybody 
and  make  them  good,  I  get  positively  nervous.  Once 
do  away  with  sin,  and  literature  will  become  a  thing  of 
the  past.  Without  the  criminal  classes  we  authors  would 
starve." 

"I  shouldn't  worry,"  replied  Jephson  dryly;  "one 
half  mankind  has  been  '  reforming'  the  other  half  pretty 
steadily  ever  since  the  Creation,  yet  there  appears  to  be 
a  fairly  appreciable  amount  of  human  nature  left  in  it 
notwithstanding.  Suppressing  sin  is  much  the  same 
sort  of  task  that  suppressing  a  volcano  would  be — plug- 
ging one  vent  merely  opens  another.  Evil  will  last  our 
time." 

"  I  cannot  take  your  optimistic  view  of  the  case," 
answered  MacShaughnassy.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  crime 
— at  all  events,  interesting  crime — is  being  slowly  driven 
out  of  our  existence.  Pirates  and  highwaymen  have 
been  practically  abolished.  Dear  old  'Smuggler  Bill' 
has  melted  down  his  cutlass  into  a  pint  can  with  a  false 
bottom.  The  pressgang  that  was  always  so  ready  to 


1 82  NOVEL  NOTES. 

rescue  our  hero  from  his  approaching  marriage  has  been 
disbanded.  There's  not  a  '  lugger  '  fit  for  the  purposes 
of  abduction  left  upon  the  coast.  Men  settle  their 
'  affairs  of  honor  '  in  the  law  courts,  and  return  home 
wounded  only  in  the  pocket.  Assaults  on  unprotected 
females  are  confined  to  the  slums,  where  heroes  do  not 
dwell,  and  are  avenged  by  the  nearest  magistrate.  Your 
modern  burglar  is  generally  an  out-of-work  greengrocer. 
His 'swag' usually  consists  of  an  overcoat  and  a  pair 
of  boots,  in  attempting  to  make  off  with  which  he  is  cap- 
tured by  the  servant-girl.  Suicides  and  murders  are 
getting  scarcer  every  season.  At  the  present  rate  of 
decrease,  deaths  by  violence  will  be  unheard  of  in 
another  decade,  and  a  murder  story  will  be  laughed  at 
as  too  improbable  to  be  interesting.  A  certain  section 
of  busybodies  are  even  crying  out  for  the  enforcement 
of  the  seventh  commandment.  If  they  succeed,  authors 
will  have  to  follow  the  advice  generally  given  to  them 
by  the  critics,  and  retire  from  business  altogether.  I  tell 
you  our  means  of  livelihood  are  being  filched  from  us 
one  by  one.  Authors  ought  to  form  themselves  into  a 
society  for  the  support  and  encouragement  of  crime." 

MacShaughnassy's  leading  intention  in  making  these 
remarks  was  to  shock  and  grieve  Brown,  and  in  this  ob- 
ject he  succeeded.  Brown  is — or  was,  in  those  days — an 
earnest  young  man  with  an  exalted— some  were  inclined 
to  say  an  exaggerated — view  of  the  importance  and  dig- 
nity of  the  literary  profession.  Brown's  notion  of  the 
scheme  of  Creation  was  that  God  made  the  universe  so 
as  to  give  the  literary  man  something  to  write  about.  I 
used  at  one  time  to  credit  Brown  with  originality  for  this 
idea;  but  as  I  have  grown  older  I  have  learned  that  the  the- 
ory is  a  very  common  and  popular  one  in  cultured  circles. 

Brown    expostulated   with    MacShaughnassy.     "  You 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


183 


speak,"  he  said,  "as  though  literature  were  the  parasite 
of  evil." 

"  And  what  else  is  she  ?  "  replied  the  MacShaughnassy, 
with  enthusiasm.  "What  would 
become  of  literature  without 
folly  and  sin  ?  What  is  the 
work  of  the  literary  man  but 
raking  a  living  for  himself  out 
of  the  dust-heap  of  human  woe. 
Imagine,  if  you  can,  a  perfect 
world — a  world  where  men  and 
women  never  said  foolish 
things  and  never  did  unwise 
ones  ;  where  small  boys  were 
never  mischievous  and  children 
never  made  awkward  remarks  ; 
where  dogs  never  fought  and 
cats  never  screeched  ;  where 
wives  never  henpecked  their 
husbands  and  mothers-in-law 
never  nagged  ;  where  men  never  went  to  bed  in  their 
boots  and  sea  captains  never  swore  ;  where  plumbers 
understood  their  work  and  old  maids  never  dressed 
as  girls  ;  where  niggers  never  stole  chickens  and  proud 
men  were  never  seasick  ?  where  would  be  your  humor 
and  your  wit  ?  Imagine  a  world  where  hearts  were 
never  bruised  ;  where  lips  were  never  pressed  with  pain  ; 
where  eyes  were  never  dim ;  where  feet  were  never 
weary  ;  where  stomachs  were  never  empty  !  where  would 
be  your  pathos  ?  Imagine  a  world  where  husbands  never 
loved  more  wives  than  one  and  that  the  right ;  where 
wives  were  never  kissed  but  by  their  husbands ;  where 
men's  hearts  were  never  black  and  women's  thoughts 
never  impure  ;  where  there  was  no  hating  and  no  envy- 


MACSHAUGHNAS 


i84 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


ing  ;  no  desiring  ;    no  despairing  ;  where  would  be  your 
scenes  of  passion,  your  interesting   complications,  your 

subtle       psychological 
analyses  ?        My   dear 
Brown,    we  writers 
— novelists,  dramatists, 
fiHHf^          poets  —  we   fatten    on 
the  misery   of   our  fel- 
low-c  r  eat  ures. 
God  created  man 
and  woman,  and 
the    woman   cre- 
ated the  literary 
man    when    she 
put  her  teeth  in- 
to the  apple.   We 
came     into     the 
world  under  the 
shadow    of     the 
serpent.    We  are 
special     c  o  r  r  e- 
spondents     with 
the  Devil's  army. 
We  report  his 
victories      in 
our  three-vol- 
ume    novels, 
his  occasional 
defeats  in  our 
five-act  melo- 
dramas." 

"All  of 
which  is  very 
true,"  re- 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


marked  Jephson  ;  "  but  you  must  remember  it  is  not 
only  the  literary  man  who  traffics  in  misfortune.  The 
doctor,  the  lawyer,  the  preacher,  the  newspaper 
proprietor,  the  weather  prophet,  will  hardly,  I  should 
say,  welcome  the  millennium.  I  shall  never  forget 
an  anecdote  my  uncle  used  to  relate,  dealing  with 
the  period  when  he 
was  chaplain  of  the 
Lincolnshire  county 
jail.  One  morning 
there  was  to  be  a 
hanging ;  and  the 
usual  little  crowd  of 
witnesses,  consist- 
ing of  the  sheriff, 
the  governor,  three 
or  four  reporters,  a 
magistrate,  and  a 
couple  of  warders, 
was  assembled  in 
the  prison.  The 
condemned  man,  a 
brutal  ruffian  who 
had  been  found 
guilty  of  murdering 
a  young  girl  under 
exceptionally  revolt- 
ing circumstances, 
was  being  pinioned 
by  the  hangman  and 

his     assistant  ;      and  "TOLD  THE  HANGMAN  TO  HURRY  UP." 

my  uncle    was   em- 
ploying the  last  few    moments  at  his   disposal  in   try- 
ing to   break    down  the  sullen    indifference   the  fellow 


1 36  NOVEL  NOTES. 

had  throughout  manifested  toward  both  his  crime  and 
his  fate. 

"  My  uncle,  failing  to  make  any  impression  upon  him, 
the  governor  ventured  to  add  a  few  words  of  exhorta- 
tion, upon  which  the  man  turned  fiercely  on  the  whole 
of  them. 

"  '  Go  to  hell/  he  cried, '  with  your  sniveling  jaw.  Who 
are  you  to  preach  at  me  ?  You're  glad  enough  I'm  here 
— all  of  you.  Why  I'm  the  only  one  of  you  as  aint  going 
to  make  a  bit  over  this  job.  Where  would  you  all  be,  I 
should  like  to  know,  you  canting  swine,  if  it  wasn't  for 
me  and  my  sort  ?  Why  it's  the  likes  of  me  as  keeps  the 
likes  of  you,'  with  which  he  walked  straight  to  the  gal- 
lows and  told  the  hangman  to  '  hurry  up,'  and  not  keep 
the  gentlemen  waiting." 

"  There  was  some  '  grit '  in  that  man,"  said  Mac- 
Shaughnassy. 

"  Yes,"  added  Jephson,  "  and  wholesome  wit,  also." 

MacShaughnassy  puffed  a  mouthful  of  smoke  over  a 
spider  which  was  just  about  to  kill  a  fly.  This  caused 
the  spider  to  fall  into  the  river,  from  where  a  supper- 
hunting  swallow  quickly  rescued  him. 

"  You  remind  me,"  he  said,  "  of  a  scene  I  once  wit- 
nessed in  the  office  of  The  Daily — well,  in  the  office  of 
a  certain  daily  newspaper.  It  was  the  dead  season,  and 
things  were  somewhat  slow.  An  endeavor  had  been 
made  to  launch  a  discussion  on  the  question  '  Are 
Babies  a  Blessing.'  The  youngest  reporter  on  the  staff, 
writing  over  the  simple  but  touching  signature  of 
'  Mother  of  Six,'  had  led  off  with  a  scathing,  though 
somewhat  irrelevant,  attack  upon  husbands,  as  a  class ; 
the  Sporting  Editor  signing  himself  '  Working  Man,' 
and  garnishing  his  contribution  with  painfully  elaborated 
orthographical  lapses,  arranged  to  give  an  air  of  verisim- 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


187 


iltude  to  the  correspondence,  while  at  the  same  time,  not 
to  offend  the  susceptibilities  of  the  democracy  (from 
whom  the  paper  derived  its  chief  support),  had  replied, 
vindicating  the  British  father,  and  giving  what  purported 
to  be  stirring  midnight  experiences  of  his  own.  The 
Gallery  Man,  calling  himself,  with  a  burst  of  imagina- 
tion, '  Gentleman  and  Christian,'  wrote  indignantly  that 


of  the  subject  to 
icate,  and  added 
paper  holding  the 
ular,  position 
opened        its 
vaporings    of 
in<r    •  Man.' 


he  considered  the  agitation 
be  both  impious  and  indel- 
he  was  surprised  that  a 
exalted,  and  deservedly  pop- 
of  The  -  -  should  have 
columns  to  the  brainless 
'  Mother  of  Six  '  and  '  Work- 

"  The  topic  had,  however, 
fallen  flat.  With  the  exception 
of  one  man  who  had  invented  a 
new  feeding  bottle,  and  thought 
he  was  going  to  advertise  it  for 
nothing,  the  outside  public  did 
not  respond,  and  over  the  edi- 
torial department  gloom  had 
settled  down. 

"  One  evening,  as  two  or 
three  of  us  were  mooning 
about  the  stairs,  praying 
secretly  for  a  war  or  a  famine, 

Todhunter,  the  town  reporter,  rushed  past  us  with  a 
cheer,  and  burst  into  the  Sub-editor's  room.  We  fol- 
lowed. He  was  waving  his  notebook  above  his  head, 
and  clamoring,  after  the  manner  of  people  in  French 
exercises,  for  pens,  ink,  and  paper. 

"'What's    up?'    cried    the    Sub-editor,    catching   his 
enthusiasm  ;  '  influenza  again  ? ' 


VINO    HIS   NOT£ 


1 88  NOVEL   NOTES. 

"'  Better  than  that,'  shouted  Todhunter.  'Excur- 
sion steamer  run  down,  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  lives 
lost — four  good  columns  of  heartrending  scenes.' 

" '  By  Jove  ! '  said  the  Sub,  '  couldn't  have  happened 
at  a  better  time,  either ' — and  then  he  sat  down  and 
dashed  off  a  leaderette,  in  which  he  dwelt  upon  the  pain 
and  regret  the  paper  felt  at  having  to  announce  the  dis- 
aster, and  drew  attention  to  the  exceptionally  harrowing 
account  provided  by  the  energy  and  talent  of  '  our 
special  reporter.'  " 

"  It  is  the  law  of  nature,"  said  Jephson  :  "  we  are  not 
the  first  party  of  young  philosophers  who  have  been 
struck  with  the  fact  that  one  man's  misfortune  is  another 
man's  opportunity." 

"  Occasionally,  another  woman's,"  I  observed. 

I  was  thinking  of  an  incident  told  me  by  a  nurse.  If 
a  nurse  in  fair  practice  does  not  know  more  about 
human  nature — does  not  see  clearer  into  the  souls  of 
men  and  women  than  all  the  novelists  in  little  Bookland 
put  together — it  must  be  because  she  is  physically  blind 
and  deaf.  All  the  world's  a  stage,  and  all  the  men  and 
women  merely  players  ;  so  long  as  we  are  in  good 
health,  we  play  our  parts  out  bravely  to  the  end,  acting 
them,  on  the  whole,  artistically  and  with  strenuousness, 
even  to  the  extent  of  sometimes  fancying  ourselves  the 
people  we  are  pretending  to  be.  But  with  sickness 
comes  forgetfulness  of  our  part,  and  carelessness  of  the 
impression  we  are  making  upon  the  audience.  We  are 
too  weak  to  put  the  paint  and  powder  on  our  faces,  the 
stage  finery  lies  unheeded  by  our  side.  The  heroic 
gestures,  the  virtuous  sentiments,  are  a  weariness 
to  us.  In  the  quiet,  darkened  room,  where  the  foot- 
lights  of  the  great  stage  no  longer  glare  upon  us,  where 
our  ears  are  no  longer  strained  to  catch  the  clapping  or 


NOVEL   NOTES.  189 

the     hissing   of   the   town,  we    are,    for  a   brief   space, 
ourselves. 

This  nurse  was  a  quiet,  demure  little  woman,  with  a 
pair  of  dreamy,  soft  gray  eyes  that  had  a  curious  power 
of  absorbing  everything  that  passed  before  them  without 


1  SHE   WOULD   TAL 


seeming  to  look  at  anything.  Gazing  upon  much  life 
laid  bare,  had  given  to  them  a  slightly  cynical  expres- 
sion, but  there  was  a  background  of  kindliness  behind. 

During  the  evenings  of  my  convalescence  she  would 
talk  to  me  of  her  nursing  experiences.  I  have  some- 
times thought  I  would  put  down  in  writing  the  stories 
that  she  told  me,  but  they  would  be  sad  reading.  The 
majority  of  them,  I  fear,  would  show  only  the  tangled, 
seamy  side  of  human  nature,  and  God  knows  there  is 


190  NOVEL  NOTES. 

little  need  for  us  to  point  that  out  to  each  other,  though 
so  many  nowadays  seem  to  think  it  the  only  work 
worth  doing.  A  few  of  them  were  sweet,  but  I  think 
they  were  the  saddest ;  and  over  one  or  two  a  man 
might  laugh,  but  it  would  not  be  a  pleasant  laugh. 

"  I  never  enter  the  door  of  a  house  to  which  I  have 
been  summoned,"  she  said  to  me  one  evening,  "  without 
wondering,  as  I  step  over  the  threshold,  what  the  story 
is  going  to  be.  I  always  feel  inside  a  sick  room  as  if  I 
were  behind  the  scenes  of  life.  The  people  come  and  go 
about  you,  and  you  listen  to  them  talking  and  laughing, 
and  you  look  into  your  patient's  eyes,  and  you  just  know 
that  it's  all  a  play." 

The  incident  that  Jephson's  remark  had  reminded 
me  of,  she  told  me  one  afternoon,  as  I  sat  propped 
up  by  the  fire,  trying  to  drink  a  glass  of  port  wine,  and 
feeling  somewhat  depressed  at  discovering  I  did  not 
like  it. 

"  One  of  my  first  cases,"  she  said,  "  was  a  surgical 
operation.  I  was  very  young  at  the  time,  and  I  made 
rather  an  awkward  mistake — not  a  professional  mistake, 
I  don't  mean — but  a  mistake  nevertheless  that  I  ought 
to  have  had  more  sense  than  to  make. 

"  My  patient  was  a  good-looking,  pleasant-spoken 
gentleman.  The  wife  was  a  pretty,  dark  little  woman, 
but  I  never  liked  her  from  the  first  ;  she  was  one  of 
those  perfectly  proper,  frigid  women,  who  always  give 
me  the  idea  that  they  were  born  in  a  church,  and  have 
never  got  over  the  chill.  However,  she  seemed  very 
fond  of  him,  and  he  of  her  ;  and  they  talked  very 
prettily  to  each  other — too  prettily  for  it  to  be  quite 
genuine,  I  should  have  said,  if  I'd  known  as  much  of  the 
world  then  as  I  do  now. 

"The  operation   was  a  difficult  and   dangerous  one. 


NOVEL   NOTES.  191 

When  I  came  on  duty  in  the  evening  I  found  him,  as  I 
expected,  woke  up.  He  was,  as  the  doctor  had  told  me 
he  would  be,  highly  delirious.  I  kept  him  as  quiet  as 
I  could,  but  toward  nine  o'clock,  as  the  delirium  only 
increased,  1  began  to  get  anxious.  I  bent  down  close  to 
him  and  listened  to  his  ravings.  Over  and  over  again  I 
heard  the  name  '  Louise.'  Why  wouldn't  '  Louise '  come 
to  him  ?  It  was  so  unkind  of  her— they  had  dug  a 


great  pit,  and  were  pushing  him  down  into  it — oh  !  why 
didn't  she  come  and  save  him  ?  He  should  be  saved  if 
she  would  only  come  and  take  his  hand. 

"  His  cries  became  so  pitiful  that  I  could  bear  them  no 
longer.  His  wife  had  gone  to  attend  a  prayer  meeting, 
but  the  church  was  only  in  the  next  street.  Fortunately, 
the  day  nurse  had  not  left  the  house  ;  I  called  her  in  to 
watch  him  for  a  minute,  and,  slipping  on  my  bonnet,  ran 
across.  I  told  my  errand  to  one  of  the  vergers,  and  he 


I92 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


took  me  to  her.  She  was  kneeling,  but  I  could  not  wait. 
I  pushed  open  the  pew  door,  and,  bending  down,  whis- 
pered to  her,  '  Please  come  over  at  once  :  your  hus- 
band is  more  delirious  than  I  quite 
care  about,  and  you  may.  be  able 
to  calm  him.' 

"  She  whispered  back,  with- 
v       ?        out    raising  her   head, 
'  I'll  be  over  in  a  little 
while.      The    meeting 
won't  lastmuch longer.' 
"  Her    answer    sur- 
prised and  nettled  me. 
'  You'll  be  acting  more 
like    a  Christian 
k         woman    by  com- 
|&        ing     home    with 
i^      me,'      I     said 
sharply,  '  than  by 
stopping    here. 
He  keeps  calling 
for    you,    and   I 
can't  get   him  to 
sleep.' 

"  She  raised 
her  head  from 
her  hands:  'Calling  for  me?'  she  asked,  with  a  slightly 
incredulous  accent. 

"  '  Yes,'  I  replied,  '  it  has  been  his  one  cry  for  the  last 
hour  ;  Where's  Louise,  why  doesn't  Louise  come  to  him. 
"  Her  face  was  in  a  shadow,  but  as  she  turned  it  away, 
and  the  faint  light  from  one  of  the  turned-down  gas  jets 
fell  across  it,  I  fancied  I  saw  a  smile  upon  it,  and  I  dis- 
liked her  more  than  ever. 


1  SHE   WAS    KNEELING." 


NOVEL   .VOTES.  193 

"  '  I'll  come  back  with  you,'  she  said,  rising  and  put- 
ting her  books  away,  and  we  left  the  church  together. 

"  She  asked  me  many  questions  on  the  wav  :  Did 
patients,  when  they  were  delirious,  know  the  people  about 
them  ?  Did  they  remembet  actual  facts,  or  was  their 
talk  mere  incoherent  rambling  ?  Could  one  guide  their 
thoughts  in  any  way  ? 

"  The  moment  we  were  inside  the  door,  she  flung  off 
her  bonnet  and  cloak,  and  came  upstairs  quickly  and 
softly. 

"  She  walked  to  the  bedside,  and  stood  looking  down 
at  him,  but  he  was  quite  unconscious  of  her  presence, 
and  continued  muttering.  I  suggested  that  she  should 
speak  to  him,  but  she  said  she  was  sure  it  would  be  use- 
less, and  drawing  a  chair  back  into  the  shadow,  sat  down 
beside  him. 

"  Seeing  she  was  no  good  to  him,  I  tried  to  persuade 
her  to  go  to  bed,  but  she  said  she  would  rather  stop,  and 
I,  being  little  more  than  a  girl  then,  and  without  much 
authority,  let  her.  All  night  long  he  tossed  and  raved, 
the  one  name  on  his  lips  being  ever  Louise — Louise — 
and  all  night  long  that  woman  sat  there  in  the  shadow, 
never  moving,  never  speaking,  with  a  set  smile  on  her 
lips  that  made  me  long  to  take  her  by  the  shoulders  and 
shake  her. 

"  At  one  time  he  imagined  himself  back  in  his  court- 
ing days,  and  pleaded,  '  Say  you  love  me,  Louise.  I 
know  you  do.  I  can  read  it  in  your  eyes.  What's  the 
use  of  our  pretending.  We  know  each  other.  Put  your 
white  arms  about  me.  Let  me  feel  your  breath  upon  my 
neck.  Ah  !  I  knew  it,  my  darling,  my  love  ! ' 

"  The  whole  house  was  deadly  still,  and  I  could  hear 
every  word  of  these  troubled  ravings.  I  almost  felt  as 
if  I  had  no  right  to  be  there  listening  to  them,  but  my 


i94 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


duty  held  me.  Later  on,  he  fancied  himself  planning  a 
holiday  with  her,  so  I  concluded.  '  I  shall  start  on  Mon- 
day evening/  he  was  saying,  '  and  you  can  join  me  in 
Dublin  at  Jackson's  Hotel  on  the  Wednesday,  and  we'll 
go  straight  on.' 

"  His  voice  grew  a  little  fainter,  and  his  wife  moved 
forward  on  her  chair,  and  bent  her  head  to  his  lips. 

"  '  No,  no,'  he  continued,  after  a  pause,  '  there's  no 
danger  whatever.  It's  a  lonely  little  place,  right  in  the 
heart  of  the  Galway  Mountains — O'Mullen's  Halfway 

House  they  call  it — 
five  miles  from  Bally- 
nahinch.  We  shan't 
meet  a  soul  there. 
We'll  have  three  weeks 
of  heaven  all  to  our- 
selves, my  goddess,  my 
Mrs.  Maddox  from 
Boston — don't  forget 
the  name.' 

"  He  laughed  in  his 
delirium;  and  the 
woman,  sitting  by  his 
side,  laughed  also;  and 
then  the  truth  flashed 
across  me. 

"  I  ran  up  to  her  and 
caught  her  by  the  arm. 
Your  name's  not 
Louise,'  I  said,  looking 
straight  at  her.  It  was 
but  I  felt  excited,  and 


an    impertinent     interference, 
acted  on  impulse. 

" '  No,'  she  replied  very  quietly  ; 


but  it's  the  name  of 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


'95 


a  very  dear  school  friend  of  mine.  I've  got  the  clew  to- 
night that  I've  been  waiting  two  years  to  get.  Good- 
night, nurse,  thanks  for  fetching  me.' 

"  She  rose  and  went  out,  and  I  listened  to  her  foot- 
steps going  down  the  stairs,  and  then  drew  up  the  blind 
and  let  in  the  dawn. 

"  I've    never  told  that    incident  to  anyone  until  this 


t    • 


E    LEFT  THE   DOOR    AJAR   SO   THAT  THEV 
COULD   CALL  OUT  TO   ONE   ANOTHER." 


evening,"  my  nurse  concluded,  as  she  took  the  empty 
port  wine  glass  out  of  my  hand,  and  stirred  the  fire.  "  A 
nurse  wouldn't  get  many  engagements  if  she  had  the 
reputation  for  making  blunders  of  that  sort." 

Another  story  that  she  told  me  showed  married  life 
more  love-lit,  but  then,  as  she  added,  with  that  cynical 
twinkle  that  glinted  so  oddly  from  her  gentle  demure 


1 96  NOVEL   NOTES. 

eyes,  this  couple  had  only  very  recently  been  wed — had, 
in  fact,  only  just  returned  from  their  honeymoon. 

They  had  been  traveling  on  the  Continent,  and  there 
had  both  contracted  typhoid  fever,  which  showed  itself 
immediately  on  their  home  coming. 

"  I  was  called  in  to  them  on  the  very  day  of  their  ar- 
rival," she  said  ;  "  the  husband  was  the  first  to  take  to 
his  bed,  and  the  wife  followed  suit  twelve  hours  after- 
ward. We  placed  them  in  adjoining  rooms,  and,  as 
often  as  was  possible,  we  left  the  door  ajar  so  that  they 
could  call  out  to  one  another. 

"  Poor  things  !  They  were  little  more  than  boy  and 
girl,  and  they  worried  more  about  each  other  than  they 
thought  about  themselves.  The  wife's  only  trouble  was 
that  she  wouldn't  be  able  to  do  anything  for*  poor  Jack.' 
'  Oh,  nurse,  you  will  be  good  to  him,  won't  you  ?'  she 
would  cry,  with  her  big  childish  eyes  full  of  tears  ;  and 
the  moment  I  went  in  to  him  it  would  be  :  '  Oh,  don't 
trouble  about  me,  nurse,  I'm  all  right.  Just  look  after 
the  wife,  will  you  ? ' 

"  I  had  a  hard  time  between  the  two  of  them,  for,  with 
the  help  of  her  sister,  I  was  nursing  them  both.  It  was 
an  unprofessional  thing  to  do,  but  I  could  see  they  were 
not  well  off,  and  I  assured  the  doctor  that  I  could  man- 
age. To  me  it  was  worth  while  going  through  the 
double  work  just  to  breathe  the  atmosphere  of  unselfish- 
ness that  sweetened  those  two  sick-rooms.  The  average 
invalid  is  not  the  patient  sufferer  people  imagine.  It  is 
a  fretful,  querulous,  self-pitying  little  world  that  we  live 
in  as  a  rule,  and  that  we  grow  hard  in.  It  gave  me  a 
new  heart,  nursing  these  young  people. 

"The  man  pulled  through,  and  began  steadily  to  re- 
cover, but  the  wife  was  a  wee  slip  of  a  girl,  and  her 
strength — what  there  was  of  it — ebbed  day  by  day.  As 


NOVEL  NOTES.  197 

he  got  stronger  he  would  call-out  more  and  more  cheer- 
fully to  her  through  the  open  door,  and  ask  her  how  she 
was  getting  on,  and  she  would  struggle  to  call  back 
laughing  answers.  It  had  been  a  mistake  to  put  them 
next  to  each  other,  and  I  blamed  myself  for  having  done 
so,  but  it  was  too  late  to  change  then.  AH  we  could  do 
was  to  beg  her  not  to  exhaust  herself,  and  to  let  us, 
when  he  called  out,  tell  him  she  was  asleep.  But  the 
thought  of  not  answering  him  or  calling  to  him  made 
her  so  wretched  that  it  seemed  safer  to  let  her  have  her 
way. 

"  Her  one  anxiety  was  that  he  should  not  know  how 
weak  she  was.  'It  will  worry  him  so,' she  would  say ; 
'  he  is  such  an  old  fidget  over  me.  And  I  am  getting 
stronger,  slowly  ;  aint  I,  nurse  ? ' 

"  One  morning  he  called  to  her,  as  usual,  asking  her 
how  she  was,  and  she  answered,  though  she  had  to  wait 
for  a  few  seconds  to  gather  strength  to  do  so.  Ke 
seemed  to  detect  the  effort,  for  he  called  back  anxiously, 
'  Are  you  sure  you're  all  right,  dear  ? ' 

"  '  Yes/  she  replied,  '  getting  on  famously.     Why  ? ' 

"  '  I  thought  your  voice  sounded  a  little  weak,  dear,' 
he  answered  ;  '  don't  call  out  if  it  tires  you.' 

"  Then  for  the  first  time  she  began  to  worry  about 
herself — not  for  her  own  sake,  but  because  of  him. 

'"Do  you  think  I  am  getting  weaker,  nurse?'  she 
asked  me,  fixing  her  great  eyes  on  me  with  a  frightened 
look. 

'"You're  making  yourself  weak  by  calling  out.'  I 
answered,  a  little  sharply.  '  I  shall  have  to  keep  that 
door  shut.' 

"  '  Oh,  don't  tell  him  ' — that  was  all  her  thought—'  don't 
let  him  know  it.  Tell  him  I'm  strong,  won't  you,  nurse  ? 
It  will  kill  him  if  he  thinks  I'm  not  getting  well.' 


198  NOVEL   NOTES. 

"  I  was  glad  when  her  sister  came  up,  and  I  could  get 
out  of  the  room,  for  you're  not  much  good  at  nursing 
when  you  feel,  as  I  felt  then,  as  though  you  had  swal- 
lowed   a    tablespoon  and 
it    was    sticking    in   your 
throat. 

JM*  "  Hater    on,     when      I 

went  in  to  him,  he  drew 
me  to  the  bed'side,  and 
whispered  me  to  tell  him 
truly  how  she  was.  If  you 
are  telling  a  lie  at  all, 
you  may  just  as  well  make 
it  a  good  one,  so  I  told 
him  she  was  really  won- 
v^™.  f  derfully  well,  only  a  little 
*^-:  ?  exhausted  after  the  ill- 

^     it  ^'       ness»  as  was  natural,  and 

that  I   expected   to   have 
'    her  up  before  him. 
|;;         "Poor  lad!  that  lie  did 
him  more    good   than   a 
week's      doctoring      and 

nursing  ;  and  next  morning  he  called  out  more  cheerily 
than  ever  to  her,,  and  offered  to  bet  her  a  new  bonnet 
against  a  new  hat  that  he  would  race  her  and  be  up  first. 
"  She  laughed  back  quite  merrily  (I  was  in  his  room 
at  the  time).  '  All  right,'  she  said,  '  you'll  lose.  I  shall 
be  well  first,  and  I  shall  come  and  visit  you.' 

"  Her  laugh  was  so  bright,  and  her  voice  sounded  so 
much  stronger,  that  I  really  began  to  think  she  had 
taken  a  turn  for  the  better,  so  that  when  on  going  in  to 
her  I  found  her  pillow  wet  with  tears,  I  could  not  under- 
stand it. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  199 

"'Why,  we  were  so  cheerful  just  a  minute  ago,'  I 
said  ;  *  what's  the  matter  ? ' 

"  '  Oh,  poor  Jack  ! '  she  moaned,  as  her  little,  wasted 
fingers  opened  and  closed  upon  the  counterpane.  '  Poor 
Jack,  it  will  break  his  heart.' 

"  It  was  no  good  my  saying  anything.  There  comes 
a  moment  when  something  tells  your  patient  all  that  is 
to  be  known  about  the  case,  and  the  doctor  and  the 
nurse  can  keep  their  hopeful  assurances  for  where  they 
will  be  of  more  use.  The  only  thing  that  would  have 
brought  comfort  to  her  then  would  have  been  to  con- 
vince her  that  he  would  soon  forget  her  and  be  happy 
without  her.  I  thought  it  at  the  time,  and  I  tried  to  say 
something  of  the  kind  to  her,  but  I  couldn't  get  it  out, 
and  she  wouldn't  have  believed  me  if  I  had. 

"  So  all  I  could  do  was  to  go  back  to  the  other  room, 
and  tell  him  that  I  wanted  her  to  go  to  sleep,  and  that 
he  must  not  call  out  to  her  until  I  told  him. 

"  She  lay  very  still  all  day.  The  doctor  came  at  his 
usual  hour  and  looked  at  her.  He  patted  her  hand,  and 
just  glanced  at  the  untouched  food  beside  her. 

"  '  Yes,'  he  said  quietly.  '  I  shouldn't  worry  her,  nurse.' 
And  I  understood. 

"  Toward  evening  she  opened  her  eyes,  and  beckoned 
to  her  sister,  who  was  standing  by  the  bedside  to  bend 
down. 

" '  Jeanie,'  she  whispered,  '  do  you  think  it  wrong  to 
deceive  anyone  when  it's  for  their  own  good  ? ' 

"'I  don't  knov,'  said  the  girl,  in  a  dry  voice;  'I 
shouldn't  think  so.  Why  do  you  ask  ? ' 

"  '  Jeanie,  your  voice  was  always  very  much  like  mine 
— do  you  remember,  they  used  to  mistake  us  at  home. 
Jeanie,  call  out  for  me— just  till— till  he's  a  bit  better  ; 
promise  me.' 


2OO 


NOVEL  NOT£S. 


"  They  h:id  loved  each  other,  those  two,  more  than  is 
common  among  sisters.     Jeanie  could  not  answer,  but 

she  pressed  her  sis- 
ter closer  in  her 
arms,  and  the  other 
was  satisfied. 

"  Then,  drawing 
all  her  little  stock  of 
life  together  for  one 
final  effort,  the  child 
raised  herself  in  her 
sister's  arms. 

"'Good-  night, 
Jack, 'she called  out, 
loud  and  clear 
enough  to  be  heard 
through  the  closed 
door. 

"  'Good-night,  lit- 
tle wife,'  he  cried 
back  cheerily  ;  '  are 
you  all  right  ? '  • 

"'Yes,  dear'. 
Good-night.' 

"Her  little,  worn- 
out  frame  dropped 
back  upon  the  bed,  and  the  next  thing  I  remember  is 
snatching  up  a  pillow,  and  holding  it  tight-pressed 
against  Jeanie's  face  for  fear  the  sound  of  her  sobs 
should  penetrate  into  the  next  room ;  and  afterward 
we  both  got  out  somehow,  by  the  other  door,  arid 
rushed  downstairs,  and  clung  to  each  other  in  the  back 
kitchen. 

"  How  we  two  women  managed  to  keep  up  the  deceit, 


NOVEL  NOTES.  201 

as  for  three  whole  days  we  did,  I  shall  never  myself 
know.  Jeanie  sat  in  the  room  where  her  dead  sister, 
from  its  head  to  sticking-up  feet,  lay  outlined  under  the 
white  sheet;  and  I  stayed  beside  the  living  man,  and 
told  lies  and  acted  lies,  till  I  took  a  joy  in  them, 
and  had  to  guard  against  the  danger  of  over-elaborating 
them. 

"  He  wondered  at  what  he  thought  my  '  new  merry 
mood,'  and  I  told  him  it  was  because  of  my  delight  that 
his  wife  was  out  of  danger  ;  and  then  I  went  on  for  the 
pure  devilment  of  the  thing,  and  told  him  that  a  week 
ago,  when  we  had  let  him  think  his  wife  was  growing 
stronger,  we  had  been  deceiving  him  ;  that,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  she  was  at  that  time  in  great  peril,  and  I  had 
been  in  hourly  alarm  concerning  her,  but  that  now  the 
strain  was  over,  and  she  was  safe  ;  and  I  dropped  down 
by  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  burst  into  a  fit  of  laughter, 
and  had  to  clutch  hold  of  the  bedstead  to  keep  myself 
from  rolling  on  the  floor. 

"  He  had  started  up  in  bed  with  a  wild  white  face 
when  Jeanie  had  first  answered  him  from  the  other  room, 
though  the  sisters'  voices  had  been  so  uncannily  alike 
that  I  had  never  been  able  to  distinguish  one  from  the 
other  at  any  time.  I  told  him  the  slight  change  was  the 
result  of  the  fever,  that  his  own  voice  also  was  changed 
a  little,  and  that  such  was  always  the  case  with  a  person 
recovering  from  a  long  illness.  To  guide  his  thoughts 
away  from  the  real  clew,  I  told  him  Jeanie  had  broken 
down  with  the  long  work,  and  that,  the  need  for  her 
being  past,  I  had  packed  her  off  into  the  country  for  a 
short  rest.  That  afternoon,  we  concocted  a  letter  to 
him,  and  I  watched  Jeanie's  eyes  with  a  towel  in  my 
hand,  while  she  wrote  it,  so  that  no  tears  should  fall 
on  it,  and  that  night  she  traveled  twenty  miles  down  the 


202  NOVEL  NOTES. 

Great  Western   line   to  post  it,  returning   by  the    next 
lip-train. 

"  No  suspicion  of  the  truth  ever  occurred  to  him,  and 
the  doctor  helped  us  out  with  our  deception  ;  yet  his 
pulse,  which  day  by  day  had  been  getting  stronger,  now 
beat  feebler  every  hour. 

"In  that  part  of  the  country  where  I  was  born  and 
grew  up,  the  folks  say  that  wherever  the  dead  lie, 
there  round  about  them,  whether  the  time  be  summer 
or  winter,  the  air  grows  cold  and  colder,  and  that 
no  fire,  though  you  pile  the  logs  halfway  up  the 
chimney,  will  ever  make  it  warm.  A  few  months' 
hospital  training  generally  cures  one  of  all  fanciful 
notions  about  death,  but  this  idea  I  have  never  been 
able  to  get  rid  of.  My  thermometer  may  show  me  sixty, 
and  I  may  try  to  believe  that  the  temperature  is  sixty, 
but  if  the  dead  are  beside  me  I  feel  cold  to  the  marrow 
of  my  bones.  I  could  see  the  chill  from  the  dead 
room  crawling  underneath  the  door,  and  creeping  up 
about  his  bed,  and  reaching  out  its  hand  to  touch  his 
heart. 

"  Jeanie  and  I  redoubled  our  efforts,  for  it  seemed  to 
us  as  if  Death  were  waiting  just  outside  in  the  pas- 
sage, watching  with  his  eye  at  the  keyhole  for  either 
of  us  to  make  a  blunder  and  let  the  truth  slip  out. 
I  hardly  ever  left  his  side  except  now  and  again  to 
go  into  that  next  room,  and  poke  an  imaginary  fire, 
and  say  a  few  chaffing  words  to  an  imaginary  living 
woman  on  the  bed  where  the  dead  one  lay  ;  and 
Jeanie  sat  close  to  the  corpse,  and  called  out  saucy 
messages  to  him,  or  reassuring  answers  to  his  anxious 
questions. 

"  At  times,  knowing  that  if  we  stopped  another  moment 
in  these  rooms  we  should  scream,  we  would  steal  softly 


NOVEL  NOTES.  203 

out  and  rush  downstairs,  and,  shutting  ourselves  out  of 
hearing  in  a  cellar  underneath  the  yard,  laugh  till  we 
reeled  against  the  dirty  walls.  I  think  we  were  both  get- 
ting a  little  mad. 

"  One  day — it  was  the  third  of  that  nightmare  life, 
so  I  learned  afterward,  though  for  all  I  could  have 
told  then  it  might  have  been  the  three  hundredth, 
for  Time  seemed  to  have  fled  from  that  house  as  from 
a  dream,  so  that  all  things  were  tangled — I  made  a 
slip  that  came  near  to  ending  the  matter,  then  and 
there. 

"  I  had  gone  in  to  that  other  room.  Jeanie  had  left 
her  post  for  a  moment,  and  the  place  was  empty. 

"  I  did  not  think  what  I  was  doing.  I  had  not  closed 
my  eyes  that  I  can  remember  since  the  wife  had  died, 
and  my  brain  and  my  senses  were  losing  their  hold  of 
one  another.  I  went  through  my  usual  performance  of 
talking  loudly  to  the  thing  underneath  the  white  sheet, 
and  noisily  patting  the  pillows  and  rattling  the  bottles 
on  the  table. 

"  On  my  return,  he  asked  me  how  she  was,  and  I  an- 
swered, half  in  a  dream,  '  Oh,  bonny,  she's  trying  to  read 
a  little,'  and  he  raised  himself  on  his  elbow  and  called 
out  to  her,  and  for  answer  there  came  back  silence — not 
the  silence  that  is  silence,  but  the  silence  that  is  as  a 
voice.  I  do  not  know  if  you  understand  what  I  mean  by 
that.  If  you  had  lived  among  the  dead  as  long  as  I  have 
you  would  know. 

"  I  darted  to  the  door  and  pretended  to  look  in.  '  She's 
fallen  asleep,'  I  whispered,  closing  it ;  and  he  said  noth- 
ing, but  his  eyes  looked  queerly  at  me. 

"  That  night,  Jeanie  and  I  stood  in  the  hall  talking. 
He  had  fallen  to  sleep  early,  and  I  had  locked  the  door 
between  the  two  rooms,  and  put  the  key  in  my  pocket, 


204  NOVEL  NOTES. 

and  had  stolen  down  to  tell  her  what  had  happened,  and 
to  consult  with  her. 

"  '  What  can  we  do  ?  God  help  us,  what  can  we  do  ! ' 
was  all  that  Jeanie  could  say. 

"  We  had  thought  that  in  a  day  or  two  he  would  be 
stronger,  and  that  the  truth  might  be  broken  to  him. 
But  instead  of  that  he  had  grown  so  weak,  that  to  excite 
his  suspicions  now  by  moving  him  or  her  would  be  to  kill 
him. 

"  We  stood  looking  blankly  in  each  other's  faces,  won- 
dering how  the  problem  could  be  solved  ;  and  while  we 
did  so  the  problem  solved  itself. 

"The  one  woman  servant  had  gone  out,  and  the  house 
was  very  silent — so  silent  that  I  could  hear  the  ticking 
of  Jeanie's  watch  inside  her  dress.  Suddenly  into  the 
stillness  there  came  a  sound.  It  was  not  a  cry.  It  came 
from  no  human  voice.  I  have  heard  the  voice  of  human 
pain  till  I  know  its  every  note,  and  have  grown  careless 
to  it  ;  but  I  have  prayed  God  on  my  knees  that  I  may 
never  hear  that  sound  again,  for  it  was  the  sob  of  a 
soul. 

"  It  wailed  through  the  quiet  house  and  passed  away, 
and  neither  of  us  stirred. 

"  At  length,  with  the  return  of  the  blood  to  our  veins, 
we  went  upstairs  together.  He  had  crept  from  his  own 
room  along  the  passage  into  hers.  He  had  not  had 
strength  enough  to  pull  the  sheet  off,  though  it  was  evi- 
dent he  had  tried.  He  lay  across  the  bed  with  one  hand 
clasping  hers." 

My  nurse  sat  for  a  while  without  speaking,  a  some- 
what unusual  thing  for  her  to  do. 

"You  ought  to  write  your  experiences,"  I  said. 

"  Ah  !  "  she  said,  giving  th«  fire  a  comtemplative  poke, 


NOVEL  NOTES.  205 

"  if  you'd  seen  as  much  sorrow  in  the  world  as  I  have, 
you  wouldn't  want  to  write  a  sad  book." 

"  I  think,"  she  added,  after  a  long  pause,  with  the 
poker  still  in  her  hand,  "  it  can  only  be  the  people  who 
have  never  known  suffering  who  can  care  to  read  of  it. 
If  I  could  write  a  book,  I  should  write  a  merry  book — a 
book  that  would  make  people  laugh." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

'HE  discussion  arose  in  this  way.     I  had  pro- 
posed a  match  between  our  villain  and  the 
daughter  of  the  local  chemist,  a   singularly 
noble  and  pure-minded  girl,  the  humble  but 
worthy  friend  of  the  heroine. 

Brown  had  refused  his  consent  on  the  ground  of  im- 
probability. "  What  in  thunder  would  induce  him  to 
marry  her?  "  he  asked. 

"  Love  !  "  I  replied  ;  "  love,  that  burns  as  brightly  in 
the  meanest  villain's  breast  as  in  the  proud  heart  of  the 
good  young  man." 

"  Are  you  trying  to  be  light  and  amusing,"  returned 
Brown  severely,  "  or  are  you  supposed  to  be  discussing 
the  matter  seriously  ?  What  attraction  could  such  a 
girl  have  for  such  a  man  as  Reuben  Neil  ? " 

"  Every  attraction,"  I  retorted.  "  She  is  the  exact 
moral  contrast  to  himself.  She  is  beautiful  (if  she's  not 
beautiful  enough,  we  can  touch  her  up  a  bit),  and,  when 
the  father  dies,  there  will  be  the  shop." 

"  Besides,"  I  added,  "  it  will  make  the  thing  seem 
more  natural  if  everybody  wonders  what  on  earth  could 
have  been  the  reason  for  their  marrying  each  other." 

Brown  wasted  no  further  words  on  me,  but  turned  to 
MacShaughnassy. 

"  Can  you  imagine  our  friend  Reuben  seized  with  a 
burning  desire  to  marry  Mary  Holme  ?  "  he  asked  with 
a  smile. 

206 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


207 


"  Of  course  I  can,"  said  MacShaughnassy  ;  •'  I  can 
imagine  anything,  and  believe  anything  of  anybody. 
It  is  only  in  novels  that  people  act  reasonably  and  in 
accordance  with  what  might  be  expected  of  them.  I 
knew  an  old  sea  captain  who  used  to  read  the  Young 
Ladies'  Journal  in 

bed,  and  cry  over  ^f         . 

it.    I  knew  a  book- 
maker who  always 
carried        Brown- 
ing's poems  about 
with    him     in    his 
pocket  to  study  in 
the  train.     I  have 
known    a    Harley 
Street   doctor    to 
develop  at   forty- 
eight     a    sudden 
and     overmaster- 
ing    passion     for 
switchbacks,    and 
to   "spend      every 
hour  he  could  spare  from  his  prac- 
tice at  one  or  other  of  the  exhi- 
bitions, having  threepen'orths  one 
after  the  other.     I  have  known  a 
book  reviewer  give  oranges  (not 
poisoned  ones)  to  children.  A  man 
is  not  a  character,  he  is  a  dozen 

characters,  one  of  them  prominent,  the  other  eleven 
more  or  less  undeveloped.  I  knew  a  man  once,  two  of 
whose  characters  were  of  equal  value,  and  ihe  conse- 
quences were  peculiar." 


'WOULD      READ     THE 

'  YOUNG     LADIES' 
JOURNAL'  IN   BED. 

AND  CRY  OVER  IT.' 


208 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


We  begged  him  to  relate  the  case  to  us,  and   he  did 
so. 

"  He  was  a  Balliol  man,"  said  MacShaughnassy,  "  and 
his  Christian  name  was  Joseph.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  '  Devonshire '  at  the 
time  I  knew  him,  and 
was,  I  think,  the  most 
superior  person  I  have 
ever  met.  He  sneered  at 
the  Saturday  Review  as 
the  pet  journal  of  the 
suburban  literary  club  ; 
and  at  the  Athen&tim 
as  the  trade  organ  of 
the  unsuccessful  writer. 
Thackeray,  he  consid- 
ered, was  fairly  entitled 
to  his  position  of  favorite 
author  to  the  cultured 
clerk  ;  and  Carlyle  he 
regarded  as  the  exponent 
of  the  earnest  artisan. 
Living  authors  he  never  read,  but  this  did  not  prevent  his 
criticising  them  contemptuously.  The  only  inhabitants 
of  the  nineteenth  century  that  he  ever  praised  were  a  few 
obscure  French  novelists,  of  whom  nobody  but  himself 
had  ever  heard.  He  had  his  own  opinion  about  God 
Almighty,  and  objected  to  heaven  on  account  of  the 
strong  Clapham  contingent  likely  to  be  found  in  resi- 
dence there.  Humor  made  him  sad  and  sentiment  made 
him  ill.  Art  irritated  him  and  science  bored  him.  He 
depised  his  own  family  and  disliked  everybody  else. 
For  exercise  he  yawned,  and  his  conversation  was  mainly 
confined  to  an  occasional  shrug. 


"THE  MOST  SUPERIOR  PERSON." 


NOVEL   NOTES.  209 

"  Nobody  liked  him,  but  everybody  respected  him. 
One  felt  grateful  to  him  for  his  condescension  in  living 
at  all. 

"  One  summer,  I  was  fishing  over  the  Norfolk  Broads, 
and  on  the  Bank  Holiday,  thinking  I  would  like  to  see 
the  London  'Arry  in  his  glory,  I  ran  over  to  Yarmouth 


THEY    SPREAD   THEM- 
SELVES     RIGHT     ACROSS 
THE    PAVEMENT." 


Walking  along  the  seafront  in  the  evening,  I  suddenly 
found  myself  confronted  by  four  remarkably  choice  speci- 
mens of  the  class.  They  were  urging  on  their  wild  and 
erratic  career  arm-in-arm.  The  one  nearest  the  road  was 
playing  an  unusually  wheezy  concertina,  and  the  other 
three  were  bawling  out  the  chorus  of  a  music-hall  song, 
the  heroine  of  which  appeared  to  be  Emma. 

"  They  spread  themselves  right  across  the  pavement, 
compelling  all  the  women  and  children  they  met  to  step 
into  the  roadway.  I  stood  my  ground  on  the  curb,  and 
as  they  brushed  by  me  something  in  the  face  of  the  one 
with  the  concertina  struck  me  as  familiar. 


210  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  I  turned  and  followed  them.  They  were  evidently 
enjoying  themselves  immensely.  To  every  girl  they 
passed  they  yelled  out,  '  Oh,  you  little  jam  tart  ! '  and 
every  old  lady  they  addressed  as  '  Mar.'  The  noisiest 
and  the  most  vulgar  of  the  four  was  the  one  with  the 
concertina. 

"  I  followed  them  on  to  the  pier,  and  then,  hurrying 
past,  waited  for  them  under  a  gas-lamp.  When  the  man 
with  the  concertina  came  into  the  light,  and  I  saw  him 
clearly,  I  started.  From  the  face  I  could  have  sworn  it 
was  Joseph  ;  but  everything  else  about  him  rendered 
such  an  assumption  impossible.  Putting  aside  the  time 
and  the  place,  and  forgetting  his  behavior,  his  compan- 
ions, and  his  instrument,  what  remained  was  sufficient  to 
make  the  suggestion  absurd.  Joseph  was  always  clean 
shaven  ;  this  youth  had  a  smudgy  mustache  and  a  pair 
of  incipient  red  whiskers.  He  was  dressed  in  the  loudest 
check  suit  I  have  ever  seen  off  the  stage.  He  wore 
patent  leather  boots  with  mother-of-pearl  buttons,  and  a 
necktie  that  in  an  earlier  age  would  have  called  down 
lightning  out  of  heaven.  He  had  a  low-crowned  billy- 
cock hat  on  his  head  and  a  big  evil-smelling  cigar 
between  his  lips. 

"  Argue  as  I  would,  however,  the  face  was  the  face  of 
Joseph  ;  and,  moved  by  a  curiosity  I  could  not  control, 
I  kept  near  him,  watching  him. 

"  Once,  for  a  little  while,  I  missed  him  ;  but  there  was 
not  much  fear  of  losing  that  suit  for  long,  and  after  a 
little  looking  about  I  struck  it  again.  He  was  sitting  at 
the  end  of  the  pier,  where  it  was  less  crowded,  with  his 
arm  round  a  girl's  waist.  I  crept  close.  She  was  a  jolly, 
red-faced  girl,  good-looking  enough,  but  common  to  the 
last  degree.  Her  hat  lay  on  the  seat  beside  her,  and  her 
head  was  resting  on  his  shoulder.  She  appeared  to  be 


NOVEL  NOTES.  211 

undoubtedly  fond  of  him,  but  he  was  evidently  bored  and 
disgusted. 

" '  Don'tcher  like  me,  Joe  ? '  I  heard  her  murmur. 

"  '  Yas,'  he  replied,  somewhat  unconvincingly,  '  o'  course 
I  likes  yer.' 

"  She  gave   him  an  affectionate  slap,  but  he  did  not 


NTLV    BORED. 


respond,  and  a  few  minutes  afterward,  muttering  some 
excuse,  he  rose  and  left  her,  and  I  followed  him  as  he 
made  his  way  toward  the  refreshment  room.  At  the 
door  he  met  one  of  his  pals. 

"  '  Hullo  ! '  was  the   question,  '  wot  'a  yer  done  wi* 
'Liza  ? ' 


212 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


" '  Oh,  1  carn't  stand  'er,'  was  his  reply  ;  '  she  gives 
me  the  bloomicj'  'ump.  You  'ave  a  turn  with  'er.' 

"  His  friend  disappeared  in  the  direction  of  'Liza,  and 
Joe  pushed  into  the  room,  I  keeping  close  behind  him. 
Now  that  he  was  alone  I  was  determined  to  speak  to  him. 


The  longer  I  had  studied  his  features,  the  more  resem- 
blance I  had  found  in  them  to  those  of  my  superior 
friend  Joseph. 

"  He  was  leaning  across  the  bar,  clamoring  for  two  of 
gin,  when  I  tapped  him  on  the  shoulder.  He  turned 
his  head,  and  the  moment  he  saw  me  his  face  went 
livid. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  213 

" '  Mr.  Joseph  Smythe,  I  believe,'  I  said  with  a  smile. 

"  '  Who's  Mr.  Joseph  Smythe  ? '  he  answered  hoarsely  ; 
'  my  name's  Smith,  I  aint  no  bloomin'  Smythe.  Who 
are  you  ?  I  don't  know  yer.1 

"  As  he  spoke,  my  eyes  rested  upon  a  curious  gold 
ring  of  Indian  workmanship  which  he  wore  upon  his  left 
hand.  There  was  no  mistaking  the  ring,  at  all  events  ; 
it  was  one  that  had  been  passed  round  the  club  on  more 
than  one  occasion  as  an  antique  curiosity.  His  eyes 
followed  my  gaze.  He  burst  into  tears,  and  pushing  me 
before  him  into  a  quiet  corner  of  the  saloon,  sat  down 
facing  me. 

"  '  Don't  give  me  away,  old  man,'  he  whimpered  ;  '  for 
Gawd's  sake,  don't  let  on  to  any  of  the  chaps  'ere  that 
I'm  a  member  of  the  blessed  old  waxwork  show  in 
Saint  James',  they'd  never  speak  to  me  agen.  And 
keep  yer  mug  shut  about  Oxford,  there's  a  good  sort.  I 
wouldn't  have  'em  know  as  'ow  I  was  one  o'  them  college 
blokes  for  anythink.' 

"  I  sat  aghast.  I  had  listened  to  hear  him  entreat  me 
to  keep  '  Smith,'  the  rorty  'Arry,  a  secret  from  the 
acquaintances  of  '  Smythe/  the  superior  person.  Here 
was  '  Smith '  in  mortal  terror  lest  his  pals  should  hear  of 
his  identity  with  the  aristocratic  '  Smythe,'  and  discard 
him.  His  attitude  puzzled  me  at  the  time,  but,  when  I 
came  to  reflect,  my  wonder  was  at  myself  for  having 
expected  the  opposite. 

" « I  carn't  'elp  it,'  he  went  on  ;  'I  'ave  to  live  two 
lives.  'Alf  my  time  I'm  a  stuck-up  prig,  as  orter  be 
jolly  well  kicked ' 

"  '  At  which  times,'  I  interrupted,  '  I  have  heard  you 
express  some  extremely  uncomplimentary  opinions  con- 
cerning 'Arries.' 

"  '  I   know/   he   replied,  in  a  voice   betraying  strong 


214  NOVEL  NOTES. 

emotion  ;  '  that's  where  it's  so  precious  rough  on  me. 
When  I'm  a  toff  I  despises  myself,  'cos  I  knows  that 
underneath  my  sneering  phiz  I'm  a  bloomin'  'Arry. 
When  I'm  an  'Any,  I  'ates  myself  'cos  I  knows  I'm  a  toff.' 

"  '  Can't  you  decide  which  character  you  prefer,  and 
stick  to  it  ? '  I  asked. 

" '  No,'  he  answered,  '  I  carn't.  It's  a  rum  thing,  but 
whichever  I  am,  sure  as  fate,  'bout  the  end  of  a  month  I 
begin  to  get  sick  o'  myself.' 

"  '  I  can  quite  understand  it,'  I  murmured  ;  '  I  should 
give  way  myself  in  a  fortnight.' 

"  '  I've  been  myself,'  he  continued,  without  noticing 
my  remark, '  for  somethin'  like  ten  days.  One  mornin,'  in 
'bout  three  weeks'  time,  I  shall  get  up  in  my  diggins  in 
the  Mile  End  Road,  and  I  shall  look  round  the  room, 
and  at  these  clothes  'angin'  over  the  bed,  and  at  this  yer 
concertina  [he  gave  it  an  affectionate  squeeze],  and  I 
shall  feel  myself  gettin'  scarlet  all  over.  Then  I  shall 
jump  out  o'  bed,  and  look  at  myself  in  the  glass. 
"  You  howling  little  cad,"  I  shall  say  to  myself,  "  I 
have  half  a  mind  to  strangle  you  ;  "  and  I  shall  shave 
myself,  and  put  on  a  quiet  blue  serge  suit  and  a  bowler 
'at,  tell  my  landlady  to  keep  my  rooms  for  me  till  I 
comes  back,  slip  out  o'  the  'ouse,  and  into  the  fust 
'ansom  I  meets,  and  back  to  the  Halbany.  And  a 
month  arter  that,  I  shall  come  into  my  chambers  at  the 
Halbany,  fling  Voltaire  and  Parini  into  the  fire,  shy  me 
'at  at  the  bust  of  good  old  'Omer,  slip  on  my  blue  suit 
agen,  and  back  to  the  Mile  End  Road.' 

"  '  How  do  you  explain  your  absence  to  both  parties  ? ' 
I  asked. 

"'Oh,  that's  simple  enough,'  he  replied.  '  I  just  tells 
my  'ousekeeper  at  the  Halbany  as  I'm  goin'  on  the  Con- 
tinong  :  and  my  mates  'ere  thinks  I'm  a  traveler.' 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


215 


"  '  Nobody  misses  me  much,'  he  added  pathetically  ; 
'  I  haint  a  partic'larly  fetchin'  sort  o'  bloke,  either  of 
me.  I'm  sich  an  out-and-outer.  When  I'm  an  'Arry, 
I'm  too  much  of  an  'Arry,  an  when  I'm  a  prig',  I'm  a 
reg'lar  fust  prize  prig.  Seems  to  me  as  if  I  was  two 
ends  of  a  man  without  any  middle.  If  I  could  only  mix 
myself  up  a  bit  more,  I'd  be  all  right.' 

"  He  sniffed  once  or  twice,  and  then  he  laughed. 
'  Ah,  well,'  he  said,  casting  aside  his  momentary  gloom  ; 
'  it's  all  a  game,  and  wot's  the  odds  as  long  as  yer  'appy 
'Ave  a  wet  ? ' 

"I  declined  the  'wet,'  and  left  him  playing  sentimental 
airs  to  himself  upon 
the  concertina. 

"  One  afternoon, 
about  a  month  later, 
the  servant  came  to 
me  with  a  card  on 
which  was  engraved 
the  name  of  'Mr. 
Joseph  Smythe.'  I 
requested  her  to 
show  him  up.  He 
entered  with  his 
usual  air  of  languid 
superciliousness, 
and  seated  himself 
in  a  graceful  atti- 
tude upon  the  sofa. 

"'Well,'  I  said,  as 
soon  as  the  girl  had 
closed  the  door  behind  her,  'so  you've  got  rid  of  Smith  ?' 

"  A  sickly  smile  passed  over  his  face.  '  You  have  not 
mentioned  it  to  anyone  ? '  he  asked  anxiously. 


'  PLAYING   SENTIMENTAL   AIRS   TO    HIMSELF 


2i6  NOVEL  NOTES. 

" '  Not  to  a  soul,'  I  replied  ;  '  though  I  confess  I  often 
feel  tempted  to.' 

"'  I  sincerely  trust  you  never  will,'  he  said,  in  a  tone 
of  alarm.  '  You  can  have  no  conception  of  the  misery 
the  whole  thing  causes  me.  I  cannot  understand  it. 
What  possible  affinity  there  can  be  between  myself  and 
that  disgusting  little  snob  passes  my  comprehension.  I 
assure  you,  my  dear  Mac,  the  knowledge  that  I  was  a 
ghoul,  or  a  vampire,  would  cause  me  less  nausea  than 
the  reflection  that  I  am  one  and  the  same  with  that 
odious  little  Whitechapel  bounder.  When  I  think  of 
him  every  nerve  in  my  body ' 

"  '  Don't  think  about  him  any  more,'  I  interrupted, 
perceiving  his  strongly  suppressed  emotion.  '  You  didn't 
come  here  to  talk  about  him,  I'm  sure.  Let  us  dismiss 
him.' 

"  '  Well,'  he  replied,  '  in  a  certain  roundabout  way  it  is 
slightly  connected  with  him.  That  is  really  my  excuse 
for  inflicting  the  subject  upon  you.  You  are  the  only 
man  I  can  speak  to  about  it — if  I  shall  not  bore  you  ? ' 

"  '  Not  in  the  least,'  I  said.  '  I  am  most  interested.' 
As  he  still  hesitated,  I  asked  him  point  blank  what  it  was. 

"  He  appeared  embarrassed.  '  It  is  really  very  absurd 
of  me,'  he  said,  while  the  faintest  suspicion  of  pink 
crossed  his  usually  colorless  face  ;  '  but  I  feel  I  must 
talk  to  somebody  about  it.  The  fact  is,  my  dear  Mac,  I 
am  in  love.' 

"  '  Capital  ! '  I  cried  ;  '  I'm  delighted  to  hear  it.'  (I 
thought  it  might  make  a  man  of  him.)  '  Do  I  know  the 
lady  ? ' 

"  '  I  am  inclined  to  think  you  must  have  seen  her,'  he 
replied  ;  '  she  was  with  me  on  the  pier  at  Yarmouth  that 
evening  you  met  me.' 

"  '  Not  'Liza  ! '     I  exclaimed. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  217 

"  '  That  was  she,'  he  answered  ;  '  Miss  Elizabeth  Mug- 
gins.' He  dwelt  lovingly  upon  the  name. 

"  '  But,'  I  said,  'you  seemed — I  really  could  not  help 
noticing,  it  was  so  pronounced — you  seemed  to  posi- 
tively dislike  her.  Indeed,  I  gathered  from  your  remark 
to  a  friend  that  her  society  was  distinctly  distasteful  to 
you.' 

'"  To  Smith,' he  corrected  me.  'What  judge  would 
that  howling  little  blackguard  be  of  a  woman's  worth  ! 
The  dislike  of  such  a  man  as  that  is  a  testimonial  to  her 
merit  !  ' 

"  '  I  may  be  mistaken/  I  said  ;  'but  she  struck  me  as 
a  bit  common.' 

"  '  She  is  not,  perhaps,  what  the  world  would  call  a 
lady,'  he  admitted  ;  '  but  then,  my  dear  Mac,  my  opinion 
of  the  world  is  not  such  as  to  render  its  opinion  of  much 
value  to  me.  I  and  the  world  differ  on  most  subjects,  I 
am  glad  to  say.  She  is  beautiful,  and  she  is  good,  and 
she  is  my  choice.' 

"'She's  a  jolly  enough  little  girl,'  I  replied,  'and,  I 
should  say,  affectionate ;  but  have  you  considered, 
Smythe,  whether  she  is  quite — what  shall  we  say — quite 
as  intellectual  as  could  be  desired  ? ' 

" '  Really,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  have  not  troubled  myself 
much  about  her  intellect,'  he  replied,  with  one  of  his 
sneering  smiles.  '  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  amount  of 
intellect  absolutely  necessary  to  the  formation  of  a  Brit- 
ish home,  I  shall  be  able  to  supply  myself.  I  have  no 
desire  for  an  intellectual  wife.  One  is  compelled  to 
meet  tiresome  people,  but  one  does  not  live  with  them 
if  one  can  avoid  it. 

"  '  No,'  he  continued,  reverting  to  his  more  natural 
tones  ;  "the  more  I  think  of  Elizabeth  the  more  clear  it 
becomes  to  me  that  she  is  the  one  woman  in  the  world 


2i8  NOVEL  NOTES. 

for  whom  marriage  with  me  is  possible.  I  perceive  that 
to  the  superficial  observer  my  selection  must  appear 
extraordinary.  I  do  not  pretend  to  explain  it,  or  even 
to  understand  it.  The  study  of  mankind  is  beyond  man. 
Only  fools  attempt  it.  Maybe  it  is  her  contrast  to  my- 
self that  attracts  me.  Maybe  my,  perhaps,  too  spiritual 
nature  feels  the  need  of  contact  with  her  coarser  clay  to 
perfect  itself.  I  cannot  tell.  These  things  must  always 
remain  mysteries.  I  only  know  that  I  love  her — that,  if 
any  reliance  is  to  be  placed  upon  instinct,  she  is  the 
mate  to  whom  Artemis  is  leading  me.' 

"  It  was  clear  that  he  was  in  love,  and  I  therefore 
ceased  to  argue  with  him.  '  You  kept  up  your  acquaint- 
anceship with  her,  then,  after  you  ' — I  was  going  to  say 
'  after  you  ceased  to  be  Smith,'  but  not  wishing  to  agi- 
tate him  by  more  mention  of  that  person  than  I  could 
help,  I  substituted,  '  after  you  returned  to  the  Albany  ? ' 

"  '  Not  exactly,'  he  replied  ;  '  I  lost  sight  of  her  after 
I  left  Yarmouth,  and  I  did  not  see  her  again  until  five 
days  ago,  when  I  came  across  her  in  an  aerated  bread 
shop.  I  had  gone  in  to  get  a  glass  of  milk  and  a  bun, 
and  she  brought  them  to  me.  I  recognized  her  in  a 
moment.'  His  face  lighted  up  with  quite  a  human 
smile.  '  I  take  tea  there  every  afternoon  now,'  he  added, 
glancing  toward  the  clock,  'at  four.' 

"  '  There's  not  much  need  to  ask  her  views  on  the  sub- 
ject,' I  said,  laughing  ;  '  her  feelings  toward  you  were 
pretty  evident.' 

" '  Well,  that  is  the  curious  part  of  it,'  he  replied,  with 
a  return  to  his  former  embarrassment  ;  '  she  does  not 
seem  to  care  for  me  now  at  all.  Indeed,  she  positively 
refuses  me.  She  says — to  put  it  in  the  dear  child's  own 
racy  language — that  she  wouldn't  take  me  on  at  any 
price.  She  says  it  would  be  like  marrying  a  clock-work 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


219 


figure  without  the  key.  She's  more  frank  than  compli- 
mentary, but  I  like  that.' 

"  '  Wait  a  minute,'  I  said  ;  '  an  idea  occurs  to  me. 
Does  she  know  of  your  identity  with  Smith  ? ' 

"  '  No,'  he  replied,  alarmed,  '  I  would   not  have  her 


know  it  for  worlds.  Only  yesterday  she  told  me  that  I 
reminded  her  of  a  fellow  she  had  met  at  Yarmouth,  and 
my  heart  was  in  my  mouth.' 

"'How  did  she  look  when  she  told  you  that?'  I 
asked. 

"  '  How  did  she  look  ?'  he  repeated,  not  understand- 
ing me. 


220  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  '  What  was  her  expression  at  that  moment  ? '  I  said 
— '  was  it  severe  or  tender  ? ' 

"  '  Well,'  he  replied,  '  now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  she 
did  seem  to  soften  a  bit  just  then.' 

"  '  My  dear  boy,'  I  said,  '  the  case  is  as  clear  as  day- 
light. She  loves  Smith.  No  girl  who  admired  Smith 
could  be  attracted  by  Smythe.  As  your  present  self 
you  will  never  win  her.  In  a  few  weeks'  time,  how- 
ever, you  will  be  Smith.  Leave  the  matter  over  until 
then.  Propose  to  her  as  Smith,  and  she  will  accept 
you.  After  marriage  you  can  break  Smythe  gently  to 
her.' 

" '  By  Jove ! '  he  exclaimed,  startled  out  of  his  cus- 
tomary lethargy,  '  I  never  thought  of  that.  The  truth  is, 
when  I  am  in  my  right  senses,  Smith  and  all  his  affairs 
seem  like  a  dream  to  me.  Any  idea  connected  with  him 
would  never  enter  my  mind.' 

"  He  rose  and  held  out  his  hand.  '  I  am  so  glad  I 
came  to  see  you,'  he  said  ;  '  your  suggestion  has  almost 
reconciled  me  to  my  miserable  fate.  Indeed,  I  quite 
look  forward  to  a  month  of  Smith,  now.' 

"'I'm  so  pleased,'  I  answered,  shaking  hands  with 
him.  '  Mind  you  come  and  tell  me  how  you  get  on. 
Another  man's  love  affairs  are  not  usually  absorbing,  but 
there  is  an  element  of  interest  about  yours  that  renders 
the  case  exceptional.' 

"We  parted,  and  I  did  not  see  him  again  for  another 
month.  Then,  late  one  evening,  the  servant  knocked 
at  my  door  to  say  that  a  Mr.  Smith  wished  to  see 
me. 

" '  Smith,  Smith,'  I  repeated  ;  '  what  Smith  ?  didn't  he 
give  you  a  card  ? ' 

"'No,  sir,' answered  the  girl;  'he  doesn't  look  the 
sort  that  would  have  a  card.  He's  not  a  gentleman,  sir; 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


but  he  says  you'll   know  him.'     She  evidently  regarded 
the  statement  as  an  aspersion  upon  myself. 

"  I  was  about  to  tell  her  to  say  I  was  out,  when  the 
recollection  of  Smythe's  other  self  flashed  into  my  mind, 
and  I  directed  her  to  send  him  up. 

"  A   minute    passed,  and   then    he   entered.     He  was 
wearing  a  new   suit   of   a  louder  pattern, 
if  possible,  than  before.     I  think  he  must 
have  designed  it  himself.    He  looked 
hot  and  greasy.     He  did  not  offer  to 
shake   hands,   but   sat 
down   awkwardly  on 
the  extreme  edge  of  a 
small  chair,  and  gaped 
about  the  room  as  if  he 
had  never   seen  it  be- 
fore. 

"  He  communicated 
his  shyness  to  myself. 
I  could  not  think  what 
to  say,  and  we  sat  for  a 
while  in  painful  silence. 

"  '  Well,' I  said,  at  last,  plunging  headforemost  into 
the  matter,  according  to  the  method  of  shy  people,  'and 
how's  'Liza  ?' 

l"Oh,  she's  all  right,1  he  replied,  keeping  his  eyes  fixed 
on  his  hat. 

"  '  Have  you  done  it  ? '  I  continued. 

"  '  Done  wot  ? '  he  asked,  looking  up. 

" '  Married  her.' 

"  '  No,'  he  answered,  returning  to  the  contemplation 
of  his  hat. 

" «  Has  she  refused  you,  then  ? '  I  said. 

"  '  I  aint  arst  'er,'  he  returned. 


222  NOVEL   NOTES. 

He  seemed  unwilling  to  explain  matters  of  his  own  ac- 
cord. I  had  to  put  the  conversation  into  the  form  of  a 
cross-examination. 

'"Why  not?'  I  asked  ;  'don't  you  think  she  cares  for 
you  any  longer?' 

"  He  burst  into  a  harsh  laugh.  '  There  aint  much  fear 
o'  that,'  he  said  ;  '  it's  like  'aving  an  Alcock's  porous 
plaster  mashed  on  yer,  blowed  if  it  aint.  There's  no 
gettin'  rid  of  'er.  I  wish  she'd  giv'  somebody  else  a  turn. 
I'm  fair  sick  of  'er.' 

"  '  But  you  were  enthusiastic  about  her  a  month  ago  ! ' 
I  exclaimed  in  astonishment. 

"  '  Smythe  may  'ave  been/  he  said  ;  *  there  aint  no  ac- 
counting for  that  ninny  ;  'is  'ead's  full  of  starch.  Any- 
how, I  don't  take  'er  on  while  I'm  myself.  I'm  too  jolly 
fly. 

'"That  sort  o'  gal's  all  right  enough  to  lark  with,'  he 
continued  ;  '  but  yer  don't  want  to  marry  'em.  They 
don't  do  yer  no  good.  A  man  wants  a  wife  as  'e  can  re- 
spect— someone  as  is  a  cut  above  'imself,  as  will  raise  'im 
up  a  peg  or  two — someone  as  'e  can  look  up  to  and  wor- 
ship. A  man's  wife  orter  be  to  'im  a  gawddess — a  han- 
gel,  a ' 

"'You  appear  to  have  met  the  lady,'  I  remarked,  in- 
terrupting him. 

"  He  blushed  scarlet,  and  became  suddenly  absorbed 
in  the  pattern  of  the  carpet.  But  the  next  moment  he 
looked  up  again,  and  his  face  seemed  literally  transformed. 

"  '  Oh,  Mr.  MacShaugnassy  !'  he  burst  out,  with  a  ring 
of  genuine  manliness  in  his  voice,  '  you  don't  know  'ow 
good,  'ow  beautiful  she  is  !  I  aint  fit  to  breathe  'er  name 
in  my  thoughts.  An'  she's  so  clever.  I  met  'er  at  that 
Toynbee  'All.  There  was  a  party  of  toffs  there,  all  to- 
gether. You  would  'ave  enjoyed  it,  Mr.  MacShaughnassy, 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


223 


if  you  could  'ave  'card  'er.  She  was  makin'  fun  of  the 
pictures  and  the  people  roundabout  to  'er  pa — such  wit, 
such  learnin',  such  'aughtiness.  I  follered  them  out  and 
opened  the  carriage  door  for  'er,  and  she  just  drew  'er 


' OPENED   THE 


GI   DOOR    FOR      EF 


skirt  aside  and  looked  at  me  as  if  I  was  the  dirt  in  the 
road.  I  wish  I  was,  for  then  perhaps  one  day  I'd  kiss 
'er  feet.' 

"  His  emotion  was  so  genuine  that  I  did  not  feel  in- 
clined to  laugh  at  him.  '  Did  you  find  out  who  she  was  ? ' 
I  asked. 

" '  Yes,'  he  answered  ;  '  I  'card  the  old  gen'leman  say 
"  'Ome  "  to  the  coachman,  and  I  ran  after  the  carriage 


224  NOVEL   NOTES. 

all  the  way  to  'Arley  Street.  Trevior's  'er  name  ;  Hedith 
Trevior.' 

" '  Miss  Trevior  ! '  I  cried,  '  a  tall,  dark  girl,  with  un- 
tidy hair  and  rather  weak  eyes  ? ' 

"  '  Tall  and  dark,'  he  replied  ;  '  with  'air  that  seems 
try  in'  to  reach  'er  lips  to  kiss  'em,  and  heyes,  light  blue, 
like  a  Cambridge  necktie.  A  'undred  and  seventy-three 
was  the  number.' 

"  '  That's  right,'  I  said  ;  '  my  dear  Smith,  this  is  becom- 
ing complicated.  You've  met  the  lady  and  talked  to  her 
for  half  an  hour — as  Smythe,  don't  you  remember?' 

"  '  No,'  he  said,  after  cogitating  for  a  minute,  '  carn't 
say  I  do  ;  I  never  can  remember  much  about  Smythe. 
He  allers  seems  to  me  like  a  bad  dream.' 

"  '  Well,  you  met  her,'  I  said  ;  '  I'm  positive.  I  intro- 
duced you  to  her  myself,  and  she  confided  to  me  after- 
ward that  she  thought  you  a  most  charming  man.' 

"  '  No — did  she?'  he  remarked,  evidently  softening  in 
his  feelings  toward  Smythe  ;  '  and  did  /  like  'er  ?  ' 

"  «  Well,  to  tell  the  truth,'  I  answered,  '  I  don't  think 
you  did.  You  looked  intensely  bored.' 

"'The  Juggins,'  I  heard  him  mutter  to  himself,  and 
then  he  said  aloud  :  '  D'yer  think  I  shall  get  a  chance  o' 
seem'  'er  agen,  when  I'm — when  I'm  Smythe  ?' 

" '  Of  course,'  I  said,  '  I'll  take  you  round  myself. 
By  the  bye,'  I  added,  jumping  up  and  looking  on  the 
mantelpiece,  '  I've  got  a  card  for  a  Cinderella  at  their 
place — something  to  do  with  a  birthday.  Will  you  be 
Smythe  on  November  the  twentieth  ? ' 

" '  Ye — as,'  he  replied  ;  '  oh,  ye — as — bound  to  be  by 
then.' 

" '  Very  well,  then,'  I  said,  '  I'll  call  round  for  you  at 
the  Albany,  and  we'll  go  together.' 

"  He  rose  and  stood  smoothing  his  hat  with  his  sleeve. 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


225 


'  Fust  time  I've  ever  looked  for'ard  to  bein'  that  hani- 
mated  corpse,  Smythe,'  he  said  slowly.  '  Blowed  if  I 
don't  try  to  'urry  it  up — 'pon  my  sivey  I  will.' 

"  'He'll  be  no  good  to  you  till  the  twentieth,'  I  reminded 
him.  And  I  added,  as  I  stood  up  to  ring  the  bell, 
'  you're  sure  it's  a  genuine  case  this  time.  You  won't 
be  going  back  to  'Liza  ?' 

"  'Oh,  don't  talk  'bout  'Liza  in  the  same  breath  with 
Hedith,'  he  replied,  '  it  sounds  like  sacrilege.' 

"  He  stood  hesitating  with  the  handle  of  the  door  in 
his  hand.  At  last,  open- 
ing it  and  looking  very 
hard  at  his  hat,  he  said, 
'1'mgoin'  to'  Arley  Street 
now.  I  walk  up  and 
down  outside  the  'ouse 
every  evening,  and  some- 
times, when  there  aint  no 
one  lookin',  I  get  a  chance 
to  kiss  the  doorstep/ 

"  He  disappeared,  and 
I  returned  to  my  chair. 

"  On  November  twen- 
tieth I  called  for  him 
according  to  promise.  I 
found  him  on  the  point 
of  starting  for  the  club  : 
he  had  forgotten  all  about 
our  appointment.  I  re-  "i  KISS  THE  DOORSTEP.' 
minded  him  of  it,  and  he 

with  difficulty  recalled  it,  and  consented,  without  any 
enthusiasm,  to  accompany  me.  By  a  few  artful  hints 
to  her  mother,  including  a  casual  mention  of  his  income, 
I  maneuvered  matters  so  that  he  had  Edith  almost  en- 


226  NOVEL   NOTES. 

tirely  to  himself  for  the  whole  evening.  I  was  proud  of 
what  I  had  done,  and  as  we  were  walking  home  to- 
gether I  waited  to  receive  his  gratitude. 

"As  it  seemed  slow  in  coming,  I  hinted  my  expec- 
tions. 

"  '  Well,'  I  said,  '  I  think  I  managed  that  very  cleverly 
for  you.' 

"  *  Managed  what  very  cleverly  ? '  said  he. 

"'Why  getting  you  and  Miss  Trevior  left  together  for 
such  a  long  time  in  the  conservatory,'  I  answered,  some- 
what hurt.  '  I  fixed  that  for  you.' 

" '  Oh,  it  \\asyvu,  was  it  ?'  he  replied.  '  I've  been  curs- 
ing Providence.' 

"I  stopped  dead  in  the  middle  of  the  pavement,  and 
faced  him.  '  Don't  you  love  her  ?  '  I  said. 

" '  Love  her  ! '  he  repeated,  in  the  utmost  astonish- 
ment ;  '  what  on  earth  is  there  in  her  to  love  ?  She's 
nothing  but  a  bad  translation  of  a  modern  French 
comedy,  with  the  interest  omitted.' 

"This  'tired'  me — to  use  an  Americanism.  'You 
came  to  me  a  month  ago,'  I  said,  '  raving  over  her,  and 
talking  about  being  the  dirt  under  her  feet  and  kissing 
her  doorstep.' 

"  He  turned  very  red.  '  I  wish,  my  dear  Mac,'  he  said, 
'you  would  pay  me  the  compliment  of  not  mistaking  me 
for  that  detestable  little  cad  with  whom  I  have  the  mis- 
fortune to  be  connected.  You  would  greatly  oblige  me 
if,  next  time  he  attempts  to  inflict  upon  you  his  vulgar 
drivel,  you  would  kindly  kick  him  downstairs. 

" '  No  doubt,'  he  added  with  a  sneer,  as  we  walked 
on,  '  Miss  Trevior  would  be  his  ideal.  She  is  exactly 
the  type  of  woman,  I  should  say,  to  charm  that  type  of 
man.  For  myself,  I  do  not  appreciate  the  artistic  and 
literary  female. 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


227 


" '  Besides/  he  continued,  in  a  deeper  tone,  '  you 
know  my  feelings.  I  shall  never  care  for  any  other 
woman  but  Elizabeth.' 

" '  And  she  ? '  I  said. 

"'She,'  he  sighed,  '  is  breaking  her  heart  for  Smith.' 


"  '  Why  don't  you  tell  her  you  are  Smith  ? '  I  asked. 

"  '  I  cannot,'  he  replied,  '  not  even  to  win  her.  Be- 
sides, she  would  not  believe  me.' 

"  We  said  good-night  at  the  corner  of  Bond  Street, 
and  I  did  not  see  him  again  till  one  afternoon  late 
in  the  following  March,  when  I  ran  against  him  in 
Ludgate  Circus.  He  was  wearing  his  transition  blue 
suit  and  bowler  hat.  I  went  up  to  him  and  took 
his  arm. 


228  NOVEL   NOTES. 

"  '  Which  are  you  now  ? '  I  said. 

"'Neither,  for  the  moment,'  he  replied,  'thank  God! 
Half  an  hour  ago  I  was  Smythe,  half  an  hour  hence  I 
shall  be  Smith.  For  the  present  half  hour  I  am  a 
man.' 

"  There  was  a  pleasant,  hearty  ring  in  his  voice,  and  a 
genial,  kindly  light  in  his  eyes,  and  he  held  himself  like 
a  frank  gentleman. 

" '  You  are  certainly  an  improvement  upon  both  of 
them,'  I  said. 

"  He  laughed  a  sunny  laugh,  with  just  the  shadow  of 
sadness  dashed  across  it.  '  Do  you  know  my  idea  of 
heaven  ? '  he  said. 

" '  No,'  I  replied,  somewhat  surprised  at  the  question. 

" '  Ludgate  Circus,'  was  the  answer.  '  The  only 
really  satisfying  moments  of  my  life,'  he  said,  '  have  been 
passed  in  the  neighborhood  of  Ludgate  Circus.  I  leave 
Piccadilly  an  unhealthy,  unwholesome  prig.  At  Char- 
ing Cross  I  begin  tq  feel  my  blood  stir  in  my  veins. 
From  Ludgate  Circus  to  Cheapside  I  am  a  human  thing 
with  human  feeling  throbbing  in  my  heart,  and  human 
thought  throbbing  in  my  brain — with  fancies,  sympa- 
thies, and  hopes.  At  the  Bank  my  mind  becomes  a 
blank.  As  I  walk  on  my  senses  grow  coarse  and 
blunted  ;  and  by  the  time  I  reach  Whitechapel  I  am  a 
poor  little  uncivilized  cad.  On  the  return  journey  it  is 
the  same  thing  reversed.' 

"  '  Why  not  live  in  Ludgate  Circus,'  I  said,  '  and  be 
always  as  you  are  now  ? ' 

" '  Because,'  he  answered,  '  man  is  a  pendulum,  and 
must  travel  his  arc. 

"  '  My  dear  Mac,'  he  said,  laying  his  hand  upon  my 
shoulder,  '  there  is  only  one  good  thing  about  me,  and 
that  is  a  moral.  Man  is  as  God  made  him  ;  don't  be  so 


NOVEL   NOTES.  229 

sure  that  you  can  take  htm  to  pieces  and  improve  him. 
All  my  life  I  have  sought  to  make  myself  an  unnaturally 
superior  person.  Nature  has  retaliated  by  making  me 
also  an  unnaturally  inferior  person.  Nature  abhors  lop- 
sidedness.  She  turns  out  man  as  a  whole,  to  be  de- 
veloped as  a  whole.  I  always  wonder,  whenever  I  come 
across  a  supernaturally  pious,  a  supernaturally  moral,  a 
supernaturally  cultured  person,  if  they  also  have  a  re- 
verse self.' 

"  I  was  shocked  at  his  suggested  argument,  and 
walked  by  his  side  for  a  while  without  speaking.  At 
last,  feeling  curious  on  the  subject,  I  asked  him  how  his 
various  love  affairs  were  progressing. 

"  '  Oh,  as  usual,'  he  replied  ;  '  in  and  out  of  a  cul-de- 
sac.  When  I  am  Smythe  I  love  Eliza,  and  Eliza  loathes 
me.  When  I  am  Smith  I  love  Edith,  and  the  mere  sight 
of  me  makes  her  shudder.  It  is  as  unfortunate  for  them 
as  for  me.  I  am  not  saying  it  boastfully.  Heaven 
knows  it  is  an  added  draught  of  misery  in  my  cup  ;  but 
it  is  a  fact  that  Eliza  is  literally  pining  away  for  me  as 
Smith,  and  as  Smith  I  find  it  impossible  to  be  even  civil 
to  her  ;  while  Edith,  poor  girl,  has  been  foolish  enough 
to  set  her  heart  on  me  as  Smythe,  and  as  Smythe  she 
seems  to  me  but  the  skin  of  a  woman  stuffed  with  the 
husks  of  learning,  and  rags  torn  from  the  corpse  of 
wit." 

"  I  remained  absorbed  in  my  own  thoughts  for  some 
time,  and  did  not  come  out  of  them  till  we  were  crossing 
the  Minories.  Then,  the  idea  suddenly  occurring  to  me, 
I  said  : 

'"Why  don't  you  get  a  new  girl  altogether?  There 
must  be  medium  girls  that  both  Smith  and  Smythe  could 
like,  and  that  would  put  up  with  both  of  you.' 

"  '  No  more  girls  for  this  child,'  he  answered  ;  '  they're 


230 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


more  trouble  than  they're  worth.  Those  yer  want  yer 
carn't  get,  and  those  yer  kin  have, 
yer  don't  want.' 

"I  started,  and  looked  up  at 
him.  He  was  slouching  along 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
and  a  vacuous  look  in  his  face. 

"  A  sudden  repulsion  seized  me. 
'  I  must  go  now,'  I  said,  stopping. 
'  I'd  no  idea  I  had  come  so  far.' 

"  He  seemed  as  glad  to  be  rid 
of  me  as  I  to  be  rid  of  him.  '  Oh, 
must  yer  ? '  he  said,  holding  out 
his  hand.  'Well,  so  long.' 

"  We  shook  hands  carelessly. 
He  disappeared  in  the  crowd,  and 
that  is  the  last  I  have  ever  seen 
of  him."  ' 


SLOUCHING   ALC 


"  Is  that  a   true   story?  "asked 
Jephson. 

"  Well,  I've  altered  the  names  and  dates,"  said  Mac- 
Shaughnassy  ;  "but  the  main  facts  you  can  rely  upon." 


CHAPTER    X. 


jHE  final  question  discussed  at  our  last  meet- 
ing   had    been :     What    shall    our    hero    be  ? 
MacShaughnassy   had  suggested   an  author, 
with  a  critic  for  the  villain.     My  idea  was  a 
stockbroker,   with  an   undercurrent  of  romance    in  his 


THK    DISCUSSION    AT   OUR   LAST   MEETING. 


nature.  Said  Jephson,  who  has  a  practical  mind  :  "The 
question  is  not  what  we  like,  but  what  the  female  novel- 
reader  likes." 


232  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  That  is  so,"  agreed  MacShaughnassy.  "  I  propose 
that  we  collect  feminine  opinion  upon  this  point.  I  will 
write  to  my  aunt,  and  obtain  from  her  the  old  lady's 
view.  You,"  he  said,  turning  to  me,  "  can  put  the  case 
to  your  wife,  and  get  the  young  lady's  ideal.  Let  Brown 
write  to  his  sister  at  Newnham,  and  find  out  whom  the 
intellectual  maiden  favors,  while  Jephson  can  learn  from 
Miss  Medbury  what  is  most  attractive  to  the  common- 
sensed  girl." 

This  plan  we  had  adopted,  and  the  result  was  now 
under  consideration.  MacShaughnassy  opened  the  pro- 
ceedings by  reading  his  aunt's  letter.  Wrote  the  old 
lady: 

"  I  think,  if  I  were  you,  my  dear  boy,  I  should  choose  a  soldier. 
You  know  your  poor  grandfather,  who  ran  away  to  America  with 
that  wicked  Mrs.  Featherly,  the  banker's  wife,  was  a  soldier,  and  so 
was  your  poor  cousin  Robert,  who  lost  eight  thousand  pounds  at 
Monte  Carlo.  I  have  always  felt  singularly  drawn  toward  soldiers, 
even  as  a  girl  ;  though  your  poor  dear  uncle  could  not  bear  them. 
You  will  find  many  allusions  to  soldiers  and  men  of  war  in  the  Old 
Testament  (see  Jer.  xlviii.  14).  Of  course  one  does  not  like  to  think 
of  their  fighting  and  killing  each  other,  but  then  they  do  not  seem  to 
do  that  sort  of  thing  nowadays." 

"  So  much  for  the  old  lady,"  said  MacShaughnassy,  as 
he  folded  up  the  letter  and  returned  it  to  his  pocket. 
"  What  says  culture  ?  " 

Brown  produced  from  his  cigar-case  a  letter  addressed 
in  a  bold  round  hand,  and  read  as  follows  : 

"What  a  curious  coincidence!  A  few  of  us  were  discussing  this 
very  subject  last  night  in  Millicent  Hightopper's  rooms,  and  I  may 
tell  you  at  once  that  our  decision  was  unanimous  in  favor  of  soldiers. 
You  see,  my  dear  Selkirk,  in  human  nature  the  attraction  is  toward 
the  opposite.  To  a  milliner's  apprentice  a  poet  would  no  doubt  be 
satisfying ;  to  a  woman  of  intelligence  he  would  be  an  unutterable 
bore.  What  the  intellectual  woman  requires  in  man  is  not  something 


NOVEL   NOTES.  233 

to  argue  with,  but  something  to  look  at.  To  an  empty-headed 
woman  I  can  imagine  the  soldier  type  proving  vapid  and  uninterest- 
ing ;  to  the  woman  of  mind  he  represents  her  ideal  of  man — a  creature 
strong,  handsome,  well-dressed,  and  not  too  clever." 

"  That  gives  us  two  votes  for  the  army,"  remarked 
MacShaughnassy,  as  Brown  tore  his  sister's  letter  in  two, 
and  threw  the  pieces  into  the  waste-paper  basket. 
"  What  says  the  common-sensed  girl  ?" 

"  First  catch  your  common-sensed  girl,"  muttered 
Jephson,  a  little  grumpily,  as  it  seemed  to  me.  "  Where 
do  you  propose  finding  her?" 

"  Well,"  returned  MacShaughnassy,  "  I  looked  to  find 
her  in  Miss  Medbury." 

As  a  rule,  the  mention  of  Miss  Medbury's  name  brings 
a  flush  of  joy  to  Jephson's  face  ;  but  now  his  features 
wore  an  expression  distinctly  approaching  a  scowl. 

"  Oh  !  "  he  replied,  "  did  you  ?  Well,  then,  the  com- 
mon-sensed girl  loves  the  military,  also." 

"By  Jove!"  exclaimed  MacShaughnassy,  "what  an 
extraordinary  thing  !  What  reason  does  she  give?  " 

"That  there's  a  something  about  them  and  that  they 
dance  so  divinely,"  answered  Jephson  shortly. 

"  Well,  you  do  surprise  me,"  murmured  M;icShaugh- 
nassy  ;  "  I  am  astonished." 

Then  to  me  he  said  :  "  And  what  does  the  young 
married  woman  say  ?  The  same  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  replied,  "  precisely  the  same." 

"  Does  she  give  a  reason  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  I  explained  ;  "  because  you  can't  help 
liking  them." 

There  was  silence  for  the  next  few  minutes,  while  we 
smoked  and  thought.  I  fancy  we  were  all  wishing  we 
had  never  started  this  inquiry. 

That     four     distinctly    different     types    of   educated 


234  NOVEL   NOTES. 

womanhood  should  with  promptness  and  unanimity  quite 
unfeminine  have  selected  the  soldier  as  their  ideal,  was 
certainly  discouraging  to  the  civilian  heart.  Had  they 
been  nursemaids  or  servant  girls,  I  should  have  ex- 
pected it.  The  worship  of  Mars  by  the  Venus  of  the 
white  cap  is  one  of  the  few  vital  religions  left  to  this 
devoutless  age.  A  year  or  two  ago  I  lodged  near  a 
barracks,  and  the  sight  to  be  seen  round  its  huge  iron 
gates  on  Sunday  afternoons  I  shall  never  forget.  The 
girls  began  to  assemble  'about  twelve  o'clock.  By  two, 
at  which  hour  the  army,  with  its  hair  nicely  oiled  and  a 
cane  in  its  hand,  was  ready  for  a  stroll,  there  would  be 
some  four  or  five  hundred  of  them  waiting  in  a  line. 
Formerly  they  had  collected  in  a  wild  mob,  and  as  the 
soldiers  were  let  out  to  them  two  at  a  time,  had  fought 
for  them,  as  lions  for  early  Christians.  This,  however, 
had  led  to  scenes  of  such  disorder  and  brutality  that 
the  police  had  been  obliged  to  interfere  ;  and  the  girls 
were  now  marshaled  in  queue,  two  abreast,  and  com- 
pelled, by  a  force  of  constables  specially  told  off  for  the 
purpose,  to  keep  their  places  and  wait  their  proper  turn. 

At  three  o'clock  the  sentry  on  duty  would  come  down 
to  the  wicket  and  close  it.  "  They're  all  gone,  my 
dears,"  he  would  shout  out  to  the  girls  still  left ;  "  it's 
no  good  your  stopping,  we've  no  more  for  you  to-day." 

"Oh,  not  one? ".some  poor  child  would  murmur 
pleadingly,  while  the  tears  welled  up  into  her  big  round 
eyes,  "  not  even  a  little  one?  I've  been  waiting  such  a 
long  time." 

"  Can't  help  that,"  the  honest  fellow  would  reply 
gruffly,  but  not  unkindly,  turning  aside  to  hide  his  emo- 
tion ;  "  you've  had  'em  all  between  you.  We  don't  make 
'em,  you  know  :  you  can't  have  'em.  if  we  haven't  got 
'em,  can  you  ?  Come  earlier  next  time." 


NOVEL  NOTES.  235 

Then  he  would  hurry  away  to  escape  further  impor- 
tunity ;  and  the  police,  who  appeared  to  have  been  wait- 
ing for  this  moment  with  gloating  anticipation,  would 
jeeringly  hustle  away  the  weeping  remnant.  "  Now 
then,  pass  along,  you  girls,  pass  along,"  they  would 
say,  in  that  irritatingly  unsympathetic  voice  of  theirs. 
"You've  had  your  chance.  Can't  have  the  roadway 
blocked  up  all  the  afternoon  with  this  'ere  demonstra- 
tion of  the  unloved.  Pass  along." 

In  connection  with  this  same  barracks,  our  charwoman 
told  Amenda,  who  told  Ethelbertha,  who  told  me  a 
story,  which  I  now  told  the  boys. 

Into  a  certain  house,  in  a  certain  street  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, there  moved  one  day  a  certain  family.  Their 
servant  had  left  them — most  of  their  servants  did  at  the 
end  of  a  week — and  the  day  after  the  moving  in  an  adver- 
tisement was  drawn  up  and  sent  to  the  Chronicle  for  a 
domestic.  It  ran  thus  : 

WANTED,  GENERAL  SERVANT,  in  small  family  of  eleven. 
Wages,  ;£6  ;  no  beer  money.     Must   be  early  riser  and  hard 
worker.     Washing   done   at   home.     Must  be   good  cook,   and  not 
object  to  window-cleaning.     Unitarian  preferred.     Apply,  with  refer- 
ences, to  A.  B.,  etc. 

That  advertisement  was  sent  off  on  Wednesday  after- 
noon. At  seven  o'clock  on  Thursday  morning  the  whole 
family  were  awakened  by  continuous  ringing  of  the 
street  door  bell.  The  husband,  looking  out  of  window, 
was  surprised  to  see  a  crowd  of  about  fifty  girls  sur- 
rounding the  house.  He  slipped  on  his  dressing  gown 
and  went  down  to  see  what  was  the  matter.  The  mo- 
ment he  opened  the  door,  fifteen  of  them  charged  tu- 
multuously  into  the  passage,  sweeping  him  completely 
off  his  legs.  Once  inside,  these  fifteen  faced  round, 
fought  the  other  thirty-five  or  so  back  on  to  the  door< 


236  NOVEL  NOTES. 

step,  and  slammed  the  door  in  their  faces.  Then  they 
picked  up  the  master  of  the  house,  and  asked  him  po- 
litely to  conduct  them  to  "  A.  B." 

At  first,  owing  to  the  clamor  of  the  mob  outside,  who 
were  hammering  at  the  door  and  shouting  curses 
through  the  keyhole,  he  could  understand  nothing,  but 
at  length  they  succeeded  in  explaining  to  him  that  they 
were  domestic  servants  come  in  answer  to  his  wife's 
advertisement.  The  man  went  and  told  his  wife,  and 
his  wife  said  she  would  see  them,  one  at  a  time. 

Which  one  should  have  audience  first  was  a  delicate 
question  to  decide.  The  man,  on  being  appealed  to,  said 
he  would  prefer  to  leave  it  to  them.  They  accordingly 
discussed  the  matter  among  themselves.  At  the  end  of 
a  quarter  of  an  hour,  the  victor,  having  borrowed  some 
hairpins  and  a  looking-glass  from  our  charwoman,  who 
had  slept  in  the  house,  went  upstairs,  while  the  remain- 
ing fourteen  sat  down  in  the  hall  and  fanned  themselves 
with  their  bonnets. 

"  A.  B."  was  a  good  deal  astonished  when  the  first 
applicant  presented  herself.  She  was  a  tall,  genteel- 
looking  girl.  Up  to  yesterday  she  had  been  head  house- 
maid at  Lady  Stanton's,  and  before  that  she  had  been 
under-cook  for  two  years  to  the  Duchess  of  York. 

"  And  why  did  you  leave  Lady  Stanton  ? "  asked 
"A.  B." 

"  To  come  here,  mum,"  replied  the  girl. 

The  lady  was  puzzled. 

"  And  you'll  be  satisfied  with  six  pounds  a  year  ?  "  she 
asked. 

"  Certainly,  mum,  I  think  it  ample." 

"And  you  don't  mind  hard  work  ?  " 

"  I  love  it,  mum." 

"  Are  you  an  early  riser  ?  " 


NOVEL  NOTES.  237 

"  Oh,  yes,  mum  ;  it  upsets  me  stopping  in  bed  after 
half-past  five." 

"  You  know  we  do  the  washing  at  home  ?  " 

"  Yes,  mum.  I  think  it  so  much  better  to  do  it  at 
home.  Those  laundries  ruin  good  clothes.  They're  so 
careless." 

"  Are  you  a  Unitarian  ?  "  continued  the  lady. 

"  Not  yet,  mum,"  replied  the  girl,  "  but  I  should  like 
to  be  one." 

The  lady  took  her  reference,  and  said  she  would 
write. 

The  next  applicant  offered  to  come  for  three  pounds — 
thought  six  pounds  too  much.  She  expressed  her  will- 
ingness to  sleep  in  the  back  kitchen  ;  a  shakedown 
under  the  sink  was  all  she  wanted.  She  likewise  had 
yearnings  toward  Unitarianism. 

The  third  girl  did  not  require  any  wages  at  all — could 
not  understand  what  servants  wanted  with  wages — 
thought  wages  only  encouraged  a  love  of  foolish  finery — 
thought  a  comfortable  home  in  a  Unitarian  family  ought 
to  be  sufficient  wages  for  any  girl. 

This  girl  said  there  was  one  stipulation  she  should 
like  to  make,  and  that  was  that  was  that  she  should  be 
allowed  to  pay  for  all  breakages  caused  by  her  own  care- 
lessness or  neglect.  She  objected  to  holidays  and  even- 
ings out ;  she  held  that  they  distracted  a  girl  from  her 
work. 

The  fourth  candidate  offered  a  premium  of  five 
pounds  for  the  place  ;  and  then  "  A.  B."  began  to  get 
frightened,  and  refused  to  see  any  more  of  the  girls,  con- 
vinced that  they  must  be  lunatics  from  some  neighboring 
asylum  out  for  a  walk. 

Later  in  the  day,  meeting  the  next-door  lady  on  the 
doorstep,  she  related  her  morning's  experiences. 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


"  Oh,  that's  nothing  extraordinary,"  said  the  next-door 
lady  ;  "  none  of  us  on  this  side  of  the  street  pay  wages  ; 
and  we  get  the  pick  of  all  the  best  servants  in  London. 
Why,  girls  will  come  from 
the  other  end  of  the  king- 
dom to  get  into  one  of  these 
houses.  It's  the  dream  of 
their  lives.  They  save  up 
for  years,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  come  here  for  nothing." 

"What's  the  attraction?" 
asked  "A.  B.,"  more  amazed 
than  ever. 

"  Why,  don't  you  see," 
explained  the  next-door  lady, 
"  our  back  windows  open 
upon  the  barrack  yard.  A 
girl  living  in  one  of  these 
houses  is  always  close  to 
soldiers.  By  looking  out  of 
window  she  can  always  see 
soldiers ;  and  sometimes  a 
soldier  will  nod  to  her,  or 

even  call  up  to  her.  They  never  dream  of  asking  for 
wages.  They'll  work  eighteen  hours  a  day,  and  put  up 
with  anything,  just  to  be  allowed  to  stop." 

"  A.  B."  profited  by  this  information,  and  engaged  the 
girl  who  offered  the  five  pounds  premium.  She  found 
her  a  perfect  treasure  of  a  servant.  She  was  invariably 
willing  and  respectful,  slept  on  a  sofa  in  the  kitchen,  and 
was  always  contented  with  an  egg  for  her  dinner. 

The  truth  of  this  story  I  cannot  vouch  for.  Myself,  I 
can  believe  it.  Brown  and  MacShaughnassy  made  no 
attempt  to  do  so,  which  seemed  unfriendly.  Jephson 


NOVEL    NOTES. 


239 


excused  himself  on  the  plea  of  a  headache.  I  admit 
there  are  points  in  it  presenting  difficulties  to  the  aver- 
age intellect.  As  I  explained  at  the  commencement,  it 
was  told  to  me  by  Ethelbertha,  who  had  it  from  Amenda, 


•«$ 


'A  SOLDIER'S  ARM  ROUND  HER  WAIST." 


who  got  it  from  the  charwoman,  and  exaggerations  may 
have  crept  into  it.  The  following,  however,  were  inci- 
dents that  came  under  my  own  personal  observation. 
They  afforded  a  still  stronger  example  of  the  influence 


24°  NOVEL   NOTES. 

exercised  by  Tommy  Atkins  upon  the  British  domestic, 
and  I  therefore  thought  it  right  to  relate  them. 

"  The  heroine  of  them,"  I  said,  "  is  our  Amenda. 
Now,  you  would  call  her  a  tolerably  well-behaved,  orderly 
young  woman,  would  you  not  ? " 

"  She  is  my  ideal  of  unostentatious  respectability," 
answered  MacShaughnassy. 

"  This  was  my  opinion  also,"  I  replied.  "  You  can, 
therefore,  imagine  my  feelings  on  passing  her  one  even- 
ing in  the  Folkestone  High  Street  with  a  Panama  hat 
upon  her  head  (my  Panama  hat),  and  a  soldier's  arm 
round  her  waist.  She  was  one  of  a  mob  following  the 
band  of  the  Third  Berkshire  Infantry,  then  in  camp  at 
Sandgate.  There  was  an  ecstatic,  far-away  look  in  her 
eyes.  She  was  dancing  rather  than  walking,  and  with 
her  left  hand  she  beat  time  to  the  music. 

"  Ethelbertha  was  with  me  at  the  time.  We  stared  after 
the  procession  until  it  had  turned  the  corner,  and  then 
we  stared  at  each  other. 

'"  Oh,  it's  impossible,'  said  Ethelbertha  to  me. 

"  '  But  that  was  my  hat,'  I  said  to  Ethelbertha. 

"  The  moment  we  reached  home  Ethelbertha  looked 
for  Amenda,  and  I  looked  for  my  hat.  Neither  was  to 
be  found. 

"  Nine  o'clock  struck  ;  ten  o'clock  struck.  At  half- 
past  ten  we  went  down  and  got  our  own  supper,  and  had 
it  in  the  kitchen.  At  a  quarter-past  eleven  Amenda 
returned.  She  walked  into  the  kitchen  without  a  word, 
hung  my  hat  up  behind  the  door,  and  commenced  clear- 
ing away  the  supper  things. 

"  Ethelbertha  rose,  calm  but  severe. 

"  '  Where  have  you  been,  Amenda  ?'  she  inquired. 

"  '  Gadding  half  over  the  county  with  a  lot  of  low 
soldiers,'  answered  Amenda,  continuing  her  work. 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


241 


"  '  You  had  on  my  hat,'  I  added. 

"'  Yes,  sir,' replied  Amenda,  still  continuing  her  work, 
'  it  was  the  first  thing  that  came  to  hand.  What  I'm 
thankful  for  is  that  it  wasn't  missis's  best  bonnet.' 

"Whether  Ethetbertha   was  mollified  by  the  proper 
spirit  displayed  in    this  last 
remark,  I  cannot  say,  but  I 
think     it     probable.    At  all 
events,  it  was  in  a  voice  more 
of  sorrow  than    of   anger  that 
she  resumed    her  examination. 
"  '  You  were  walking  with  a 
soldier's     arm     around     your 
waist    when    we    passed    you, 
Amenda  ? '  she  observed  inter- 
rogatively. 

"  '  I    know,    mum,'  admitted 
Amenda,    « I     found     it   there 
myself   when   the    music    stopped.' 
"  Ethelbertha  looked  her  inquiries. 
Amenda  filled  a  saucepan  with  water, 
and  then  replied  to  them. 

"  « I'm  a   disgrace  to   a  decent  house- 
hold,' she  said  ;  'no  mistress  who  respected 
herself  would  keep  me  a  moment.     I  ought  .,  AND  HVts^  MY 
to  be  put  on  the  doorstep  with  my   box 
and  a  month's  wages.' 

"'But  why  did  you  do  it,  then?'  said  Ethelbertha, 
with  natural  astonishment. 

"  '  Because  I'm  a  helpless  ninny,  mum. 
myself  ;  if  I  see  soldiers  I'm  bound  to  follow  them.  It 
runs  in  our  family.  My  poor  cousin  Emma  was  just 
such  another  fool.  She  was  engaged  to  be  married  to  a 
quiet,  respectable  young  fellow  with  a  shop  of  his  own, 


I  can't  help 


242  NOVEL  NOTES. 

and  three  days  before  the  wedding  she  ran  off  with  a 
regiment  of  marines  to  Chatham  and  married  the  color- 
sergeant.  That's  what  I  shall  end  by  doing.  I've  been 
all  the  way  to  Sandgate  with  that  lot  you  saw  me  with, 
and  I've  kissed  four  of  them — the  nasty  wretches.  I'm 
a  nice  sort  of  a  girl  to  be  walking  out  with  a  respectable 
milkman.' 

"  She  was  so  deeply  disgusted  with  herself  that  it 
seemed  superfluous  for  anybody  else  to  be  indignant 
with  her  ;  and  Ethelbertha  changed  her  tone  and  tried 
to  comfort  her. 

"  '  Oh,  you'll  get  over  all  that  nonsense,  Amenda,'  she 
said  laughingly  ;  '  you  see  yourself  how  silly  it  is.  You 
must  tell  Mr.  Bowles  to  keep  you  away  from  soldiers.' 

"  '  Ah,  I  can't  look  at  it  in  the  same  light  way  that  you 
do,  mum,'  returned  Amenda,  somewhat  approvingly  ;  'a 
girl  that  can't  see  a  bit  of  red  marching  down  the  street 
without  wanting  to  rush  out  and  follow  it  aint  fit  to  be 
anybody's  wife.  Why,  I  should  be  leaving  the  shop  with 
nobody  in  it  about  twice  a  week,  and  he'd  have  to  go 
the  round  of  all  the  barracks  in  London,  looking  for  me. 
I  shall  save  up  and  get  myself  into  a  lunatic  asylum, 
that's  what  I  shall  do.' 

"Ethelbertha  began  to  grow  quite  troubled.  'But 
surely  this  is  something  altogether  new,  Amenda,'  she 
said  ;  '  you  must  have  often  met  soldiers  when  you've 
been  out  in  London  ?' 

"  '  Oh,  yes  ;  one  or  two  at  a  time,  walking  about  any- 
how ;  I  can  stand  that  all  right.  It's  when  there's  a  lot 
of  them  with  a  band  that  I  lose  my  head. 

"  '  You  don't  know  what  it's  like,  mum,'  she  added, 
noticing  Ethelbertha's  puzzled  expression  ;  '  you've 
never  had  it.  I  only  hope  you  never  may.' 

"  We  kept  a  careful  watch  over  Amenda  during  the 


NOVEL  NOTES.  243 

remainder  of  our  stay  at  Folkestone,  and  an  anxious 
time  we  had  of  it.  Every  day  some  regiment  or  other 
would  march  through  the  town,  and  at  the  first  sound  of 
its  music  Amenda  would  become  restless  and  excited. 
The  Pied  Piper's  reed  could  not  have  stirred  the  Hamelin 
children  deeper  than  did  those  Sandgate  bands  the  heart 
of  our  domestic.  Fortunately,  they  generally  passed 
early  in  the  morning  when  we  were  indoors,  but  one  day 
returning  home  to  lunch,  we  heard  distant  strains  dying 
away  upon  the  Hythe  Road.  We  hurried  in.  Ethel- 
bertha  ran  down  into  the  kitchen  ;  it  was  empty  ! — up 
into  Amenda's  bedroom  ;  it  was  vacant  !  We  called. 
There  was  no  answer. 

" « That  miserable  girl  has  gone  off  again,'  said  Ethel- 
bertha.  '  What  a  terrible  misfortune  it  is  for  her.  It's 
quite  a  disease.' 

"  Ethelbertha  wanted  me  to  go  to  Sandgate  camp  and 
inquire  for  her.  I  was  sorry  for  the  girl  myself,  but  the 
picture  of  a  young  and  innocent  looking  man  wandering 
about  a  complicated  camp,  inquiring  for  a  lost  domestic, 
presenting  itself  to  my  mind,  I  said  that  I'd  rather  not. 

"  Ethelbertha  thought  me  heartless,  and  said  that  if 
I  would  not  go  she  would  go  herself.  I  replied  that 
I  thought  one  female  member  of  my  household  was 
enough  in  that  camp  at  a  time,  and  requested  her  not 
to.  Ethelbertha  expressed  her  sense  of  my  inhuman  be- 
havior by  haughtily  declining  to  eat  any  lunch,  and  I 
expressed  my  sense  of  her  unreasonableness  by  sweeping 
the  whole  meal  into  the  grate,  after  which  Ethelbertha 
suddenly  developed  exuberant  affection  for  the  cat  (who 
didn't  want  anybody's  love,  but  wanted  to  get  under  the 
grate  after  the  lunch),  and  I  became  supernaturally  ab- 
sorbed in  the  day  before  yesterday's  newspaper. 

"  In   the   afternoon,  strolling  out  into  the  garden,  I 


244 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


heard  the  faint  cry  of  a  female  in  distress.  I  listened 
attentively,  and  the  cry  was  repeated.  I  thought  it 
sounded  like  Amenda's  voice,  but  where  it  came  from 
I  could  not  conceive.  It  grew  nearer,  however,  as  I  ap- 
proached the  bottom  of  the  garden,  and  at  last  I  located 
it  in  a  small  wooden  shed, 
used  by  the  proprietor  of 
the  house  as  a  dark  room 
for  developing  photo- 
graphs. 

"The  door  was  locked. 
'  Is  that  you,  Amenda  ?  'I 
cried  through  the  keyhole. 
"  '  Yes,  sir,'  came  back 
the  muffled  answer.  '  Will 
you  please  let  me  out ; 
you'll  find  the  key  on  the 
ground  near  the  door.' 
4,  "  I  discovered  it  on  the 
-  grass  about  a  yard  away, 
j  and  released  her.  '  Who 
locked  you  in  ? '  I  asked. 
" '  I  did,  sir,'  she  re- 
plied ;  '  I  locked  myself 
in,  and  pushed  the  key 
out  under  the  door.  I  had  to  do  it,  or  I  should  have 
gone  off  with  those  beastly  soldiers.' 

"'I  hope  I  haven't  inconvenienced  you,  sir,'  she 
added,  stepping  out  ;  '  I  left  the  lunch  all  laid.'  " 

Amenda's  passion  for  soldiers  was  her  one  tribute  to 
sentiment.  Toward  all  others  of  the  male  sex  she  main- 
tained an  attitude  of  callous  unsusceptibility,  and  her 
engagements  with  them  (which  were  numerous)  were 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


245 


entered  into  or  abandoned  on  grounds  so  sordid  as  to 
seriously  shock  Ethelbertha. 

When   she  came  to  us    she  was  engaged    to  a  pork 
butcher — with   a  milkman    in    reserve.     For   Amenda's 
sake  we  dealt  with  the  man,  but  we  never 
liked  him,  and  we  liked  his  pork  still  less. 
When,   therefore,  Amenda  announced   to 
us  that  her  engagement  with 
him    was    "  off,"    and    inti- 
mated   that     her      feelings 


would  in  no  way  suffer  by  our  going  elsewhere  for  our 
bacon,  we  secretly  rejoiced. 

"  I  am  confident  you  have  done  right,  Amenda,"  said 
Ethelbertha  ;  "  you  would  never  have  been  happy  with 
that  man." 

"  No,  mum,  I  don't  think  I  ever  should,"  replied 
Amenda.  "  I  don't  see  how  any  girl  could  as  hadn't 
the  digestion  of  an  ostrich." 

Ethelbertha  looked  puzzled.  "  But  what  has  diges- 
tion got  to  do  with  it  ?"  she  asked. 


246  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"A  pretty  good  deal,  mum,"  answered  Ameuda, 
"  when  you're  thinking  of  marrying  a  man  as  can't  make 
a  sausage  fit  to  eat." 

"  But  surely,"  exclaimed  Ethelbertha,  "  you  don't 
mean  to  say  you're  breaking  off  the  match  because  you 
don't  like  his  sausages  !  " 

"  Well,  I  suppose  that's  what  it  comes  to,"  agreed 
Amenda  unconcernedly. 

"  What  an  awful  idea  ! "  sighed  poor  Ethelbertha, 
after  a  long  pause.  "  Do  you  think  you  ever  really  loved 
him  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Amenda,  "  I  loved  him  right  enough, 
but  it's  no  good  loving  a  man  that  wants  you  to  live  on 
sausages  that  keep  you  awake  all  night." 

"  But  does  he  want  you  to  live  on  sausages  ? "  per- 
sisted Ethelbertha. 

"  Oh,  he  doesn't  say  anything  about  it,"  explained 
Amenda  ;  '•  but  you  know  what  it  is,  mum,  when  you 
marry  a  pork  butcher  :  you're  expected  to  eat  what's 
left  over.  That's  the  mistake  my  poor  cousin  Eliza 
made.  She  married  a  muffin  man.  Of  course,  what  he 
didn't  sell  they  had  to  finish  up  themselves.  Why,  one 
winter,  when  he  had  a  run  of  bad  luck,  they  lived  for 
two  months  on  nothing  but  muffins.  I  never  saw  a  girl 
so  changed  in  all  my  life.  One  has  to  think  of  these 
things,  you  know." 

But  the  most  shamefully  mercenary  engagement  that  I 
think  Amenda  ever  entered  into  was  one  with  a  'bus 
conductor.  We  were  living  in  the  north  of  London 
then,  and  she  had  a  young  man,  a  cheesemonger,  who 
kept  a  shop  in  Lupus  Street,  Chelsea.  He  could  not 
come  up  to  her  because  of  the  shop,  so  once  a  week  she 
used  to  go  down  to  him.  One  did  not  ride  ten  miles  for 
a  penny  in  those  days,  and  she  found  the  fare  from  HoU 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


247 


loway  to  Victoria  and  back  a  severe  tax  upon  her  purse. 
The  same  bus  that  took  her  down  at  six  brought  her  back 
at  ten.  During  the  first  journey  the'bus  conductor  stared 
at  Amenda  ;  during  the  second  he  talked  to  her,  during 
the  third  he  gave  her  a  cocoanut,  during  the  fourth  he 
proposed  to  her,  and  was  prompt- 
ly accepted.  After  that,  Amenda 
was  enabled  to  visit  her  cheese- 
monger without  ex- 
pense. 

He    was    a    quaint 
character  himself,  was 
this  'bus  conductor.     I 
often  rode  with  him  to 
Fleet  Street.    He 
knew    me    quite 
well    (I    suppose 
Amenda       must 
have  pointed  me 
out  to  him),  and 
would  always  ask 
me    after    her — 
aloud,  before  all 
the  other  passen- 
gers,  which  was 
trying — and  give 
me   messages   to 

take  back  to  her.  Where  women  were  concerned  he 
had  what  is  called  "  a  way  "  with  him,  and  from  the 
extent  and  variety  of  his  female  acquaintance,  and  the 
evident  tenderness  with  which  the  majority  of  them 
regarded  him,  I  am  inclined  to  hope  that  Amenda's 
desertion  of  him  (which  happened  contemporaneously 
with  her  jilting  of  the  cheesemonger)  caused  him  less 


248 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


prolonged    suffering  than   might    otherwise   have   been 
the  case. 

He  was  a  man  from  whom  I  derived  a  good  deal 
of  amusement  one  way  and  another.  Thinking  of 
him  brings  back  to  my  mind  a  somewhat  odd 
incident. 

One  afternoon,  I  jumped  upon  his  'bus  in  the  Seven 
Sisters  Road.  An  elderly  Frenchman  was  the  only  other 
occupant  of  the  vehicle. 
"  You  vill  not  forget  me," 
the  Frenchman  was  saying 
as  I  entered,  "I  desire  Shar- 
ing Cross." 

"  I  won't  forget  yer,"  an- 
swered the  conductor,  "  you 
shall  'ave  yer  Sharing 
Cross.     Don't  make  a 
fuss  about  it." 

"That's  the  third 
time  'ee's  arst  me  not 
to  forget  "im,"  he  re- 
marked to  me  in  a 
stentorian  aside  ;  "  'ee 
don't  giv'  yer  much 
chance  of  doin'  it, 
does  'ee  ? " 

At  the  corner  of  the 
Holloway  Road  we 

"  *  I   DESIRE   SHARING   CROSS.'  " 

drew  up,  and  our  con- 
ductor began  to  shout  after  the  manner  of  his  species  : 
"  Charing  Cross — Charing  Cross — 'ere  yer  are — come 
along,  lady — Charing  Cross." 

The  little  Frenchman  jumped  up,  and  prepared  to  exit ; 
the  conductor  pushed  him  back. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  249 

"  Sit  down  and  don't  be  silly,"  he  said  ;  "  this  aint 
Charing  Cross." 

The  Frenchman  looked  puzzled,  but  collapsed  meekly. 
We  picked  up  a  few  passengers,  and  proceeded  on  our 
way.  Half  a  mile  up  the  Liverpool  Road  a  lady  stood 
on  the  curb  regarding  us  as  we  passed  with  that  pathetic 
mingling  of  de- 
sire and  distrust 
which  is  the  av- 
erage woman's, 
attitude  toward 
conveyances  of 
all  kinds.  Our 
conductor  stopped. 

"Where  d'yer 
want  to  go  to  ?  "  he 
asked  her  severely 
—  "Strand— Char- 
ing  Cross?" 

The  Frenchman  did  not 
hear  or  did  not  under- 
stand the  first  part  of  the 
speech,  but  he  caught  the 
words  "Charing  Cross," 
and  bounced  up  and  out 
on  to  the  step.  The  con- 
ductor collared  him  as 
he  was  getting  off,  and 
jerked  him  back  savagely. 

"  Carn't  yer  keep  still  a  minute  ? "  he  cried  indignantly  ; 
"  blessed  if  you  don't  want  looking  after  like  a  bloomin' 
kid." 

"I  vont  to  be  put  down  at  Sharing  Cross,"  answered 
the  Frenchman  humbly. 


250  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"You  vont  to  be  put  down  at  Sharing  Cross,"  repeated 
the  other  bitterly,  as  he  led  him  back  to  his  seat.  "I 
shall  put  yer  down  in  the  middle  of  the  road  if  I  'ave 
much  more  of  yer.  You  stop  there  till  I  come  and 
sling  yer  out.  I  aint  likely  to  let  yer  go  much  past 
yer  Sharing  Cross,  I  shall  be  too  jolly  glad  to  get 
rid  o'  yer.  " 

The  poor  Frenchman  subsided,  and  we  jolted  on. 
At  The  Angel  we,  of  course,  stopped.  "  Charing 
Cross,"  shouted  the  conductor,  and  up  sprang  the 
Frenchman. 

"  Oh,  my  Gawd,"  said  the  conductor,  taking  him 
by  the  shoulders  and  forcing  him  down  into  the 
corner  seat,  "  wot  am  I  to  do  ?  Carn't  somebody  sit 
on  'im  ? " 

He  held  him  firmly  down  until  the  'bus  started  and 
then  released  him.  At  the  top  of  Chancery  Lane  the 
same  scene  took  place,  and  the  poor  little  Frenchman 
became  exasperated. 

"  He  keep  saying  Sharing  Cross,  Sharing  Cross,"  he 
exclaimed,  turning  to  the  other  passengers  ;  "and  it  is  no 
Sharing  Cross.  He  is  fool." 

"  Carn't  yer  understand,"  retorted  the  conductor, 
equally  indignant;  "of  course  I  say  Sharing  Cross — I 
mean  Charing  Cross,  but  that  don't  mean  that  it 
is  Charing  Cross.  That  means "  and  then  per- 
ceiving from  the  blank  look  on  the  Frenchman  s 
face  the  utter  impossibility  of  ever  making  the  mat- 
ter clear  to  him,  he  turned  to  us  with  an  appealing 
gesture,  and  asked  : 

"  Does  any  gentleman  know  the  French  for  '  bloomin' 
idiot'  ?" 

A  day  or  two  afterward,  I  happened  to  enter  his  omni- 
bus again. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  251 

"Well,"  I  asked  him,  "  did  you  get  your  French  friend 
to  Charing  Cross  all  right  ? " 

"  No,  sir,"  he  replied,  "  you'll  'ardly  believe  it,  but  I  'ad 
a  bit  of  a  row  with  a  policeman  just  before  I  got  to  the 
corner,  and  it  put  'im  clean  out  o'  my  'ead.  Blessed  if  I 
didn't  run  'im  on  to  Victoria." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

|AID  Brown   one  evening,  "There  is  but  one 
vice,  and  that  is  selfishness." 

Jephson  was  standing  before  the  fire  light- 
ing his  pipe.     He  puffed  the  tobacco  into  a 
glow,  threw  the  match  into  the  embers,  and  then  said: 

"And  the  seed  of  all  virtue,  also." 

"Sit  down  and  get  on  with  your  work,"  said  Mac- 
Shaughnassy  from  the  sofa  where  he  lay  at  full  length 
with  his  heels  on  a  chair;  ''we're  discussing  the  novel. 
Paradoxes  not  admitted  during  business  hours." 

Jephson,  however,  was  in  an  argumentative  mood. 
"Selfishness,"  he  continued,  "is  merely  another  name 
for  Will.  Every  deed,  good  or  bad,  that  we  do  is 
prompted  by  selfishness.  We  are  charitable  to  secure 
ourselves  a  good  place  in  the  next  world,  to  make  our- 
selves respected  in  this,  to  ease  our  own  distress  at  the 
knowledge  of  suffering.  One  man  is  kind  because  it 
gives  him  pleasure  to  be  kind,  just  as  another  is  cruel 
because  cruelty  pleases  him.  A  great  man  does  his  duty 
because  to  him  the  sense  of  duty  done  is  a  deeper  delight 
than  would  be  the  ease  resulting  from  avoidance  of  duty. 
The  religious  man  is  religious  because  he  finds  a  joy 
in  religion;  the  moral  man  moral  because  with  his  strong 
self-respect,  viciousness  would  mean  wretchedness. 
Self-sacrifice  itself  is  only  a  subtle  selfishness;  we  prefer 
the  mental  exaltation  gained  thereby  to  the  sensual  grati- 
fication which  is  the  alternative  reward.  Man  cannot  be 
anything  else  but  selfish.  Selfishness  is  the  law  of  all 


NOVEL  NOTES.  253 

life.  Each  thing,  from  the  farthest  fixed  star  to  the 
smallest  insect  crawling  on  the  earth,  fighting  for  itself 
according  to  its  strength;  and  brooding  over  all,  the 
Eternal,  working  for  Himself :  that  is  the  universe." 

"Have  some  whisky,"  said  MacShaughnassy;  "and 
don't  be  so  complicatedly  metaphysical.  You  make  my 
head  ache." 

"If  all  action,  good  and  bad,  spring  from  selfishness," 
replied  Brown,  "then  there  must  be  good  selfishness  and 
bad  selfishness;  and  your  bad  selfishness  is  my  plain  sel- 
fishness, without  any  adjective,  so  we  are  back  where  we 
started.  I  say  selfishness — bad  selfishness  is  the  root  of 
all  evil,  and  there  you  are  bound  to  agree  with  me." 

"Not  always,"  persisted  Jephson;  "I've  known  sel- 
fishness—selfishness according  to  the  ordinarily  accepted 
meaning  of  the  term — to  be  productive  of  good  actions. 
I  can  give  you  an  instance,  if  you  like." 

"Has  it  got  a  moral?"  asked  MacShaughnassy 
drowsily. 

Jephson  mused  a  moment.  "Yes,"  he  at  length  said; 
"a  very  practical  moral — and  one  very  useful  to  young 
men." 

"That's  the  sort  of  story  we  want,"  said  the  Mac- 
Shaughnassy, raising  himself  into  a  sitting  position. 
"You  listen  to  this,  Brown." 

Jephson  seated  himself  upon  a  chair,  in  his  favorite 
attitude,  with  his  elbows  resting  upon  the  back,  and 
smoked  for  a  while  in  silence. 

"There  are  three  people  in  this  story,"  he  began;  '  'the 
wife,  the  wife's  husband,  and  the  other  man.  In  most 
dramas  of  this  type,  it  is  the  wife  who  is  the  chief  char- 
acter. In  this  case,  the  interesting  person  is  the  other 
man." 

"The  wife— I  met  her  once;  she  was  the  most  beauti- 


254  NOVEL  NOTES. 

ful  woman  I  have  ever  seen,  and  the  most  wicked  look- 
ing; which  is  saying  a  good  deal  for  both  statements.  I 
remember,  during  a  walking  tour  one  year,  coming  across 
a  lovely  little  cottage.  It  was  the  sweetest  place  imagi- 
nable. I  need  not  describe  it.  It  was  the  cottage  one 
sees  in  pictures,  and  reads  of  in  sentimental  poetry.  I 
was  leaning  over  the  neatly  cropped  hedge,  drinking  in 
its  beauty,  when  at  one  of  the  tiny  casements  I  saw, 
looking  out  at  me,  a  face.  It  stayed  there  only  a 
moment,  but  in  that  moment  the  cottage  had  become 
ugly,  and  I  hurried  away  with  a  shudder. 

"That  woman's  face  reminded  me  of  the  incident.  It 
was  an  angel's  face  until  the  woman  herself  looked  out 
of  it ;  then  you  were  struck  by  the  strange  incongruity 
between  tenement  and  tenant. 

"That  at  one  time  she  had  loved  her  husband,  I  have 
little  doubt.  Vicious  women  have  few  vices,  and  sordid- 
ness  is  not  usually  one  of  them.  She  had  probably 
married  him,  borne  toward  him  by  one  of  those  waves  of 
passion  upon  which  the  souls  of  animal  natures  are  con- 
tinually rising  and  falling.  On  possession,  however,  had 
quickly  followed  satiety,  and  from  satiety  had  grown  the 
desire  for  a  new  sensation. 

"They  were  living  at  Cairo  at  the  period;  her  husband 
held  an  important  official  position  there,  and  by  virtue 
of  this,  and  of  her  own  beauty  and  tact,  her  house  soon 
became  the  center  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  society  ever  drift- 
ing in  and  out  of  the  city.  The  women  disliked  her, 
and  copied  her.  The  men  spoke  slightingly  of  her  to 
their  wives,  lightly  of  her  to  each  other,  and  made  idiots 
of  themselves  when  they  were  alone  with  her.  She 
laughed  at  them  to  their  faces,  and  mimicked  them 
behind  their  backs.  Their  friends  said  it  was  clever. 
"One  year  there  arrived  a  young  English  engineer, 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


255 


who  had  come  out  to  superintend  some  canal  works. 
He  brought  with  him  satisfactory  letters  of  recommen- 
dation, and  was  at  once  received  by  the  European  resi- 
dents as  a  welcome  addition  to  their  social  circle.  He 
was  not  particularly  good-looking;  he  was  not  remarkably 


SHK    LAUGHE 


charming,  but  he  possessed  the  one  thing  that  few  women 
can  resist  in  a  man,  and  that  is  strength.  The  woman 
looked  at  the  man,  and  the  man  looked  back  at  the 
woman;  and  the  drama  began. 

"Scandal    flies   swiftly   through   small    communities, 


256  NOVEL   XOTES. 

Before  a  month,  their  relationship  was  the  chief  topic  of 
conversation  throughout  the  quarter.  In  less  than  two, 
it  reache'd  the  ears  of  the  woman's  husband. 

"He  was  either  an  exceptionally  mean  or  an  excep- 
tionally noble  character,  according  to  how  one  views 
the  matter.  He  worshiped  his  wife — as  men  with  big 
heart  and  weak  brains  often  do  worship  such  women — 
with  doglike  devotion.  His  only  dread  was  lest  the 
scandal  should  reach  proportions  that  would  compel  him 
to  take  notice  of  it,  and  thus  bring  shame  and  suffering 
upon  the  woman  to  whom  he  would  have  given  his  life. 
That  a  man  who  saw  her  should  love  her  seemed  natural 
to  him;  that  she  should  have  grown  tired  of  himself,  a 
thing  not  to  be  wondered  at.  He  was  grateful  to  her  for 
having  once  loved  him,  for  a  little  while. 

"As  for  'the  other  man,'  he  proved  somewhat  of  an 
enigma  to  the  gossips.  He  attempted  no  secrecy;  if 
anything,  he  rather  paraded  his  subjugation — or  his  con- 
quest, it  was  difficult  to  decide  which  term  to  apply.  He 
rode  and  drove  with  her;  visited  her  in  public  and  in 
private  (in  such  privacy  as  can  be  hoped  for  in  a  house 
filled  with  chattering  servants,  and  watched  by  spying 
eyes);  loaded  her  with  expensive  presents,  which  she 
wore  openly,  and  papered  his  smoking  den  with  her 
photographs.  Yet  he  never  allowed  himself  to  appear 
in  the  least  degree  ridiculous;  never  allowed  her  to  come 
between  him  and  his  work.  A  letter  from  her  he  would 
lay  aside  unopened  until  he  had  finished  what  he  evi- 
dently regarded  as  more  important  business.  When 
boudoir  and  engine-shed  became  rivals,  it  was  the 
boudoir  that  had  to  wait. 

"The  woman  chafed  under  his  self-control,  which 
stung  her  like  a  lash,  but  clung  to  him  the  more 
abjectly. 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


257 


''Tell  me  you  love  me!'  she  would  cry  fiercely, 
stretching  her  white  arms  toward  him. 

'  'I  have  told  you  so,'  he  would  reply  calmly,  without 
moving. 

'  'I  want  to  hear  you  tell  it  me  again,'  she  would  plead 
with  a  voice  that  trembled  on  a  sob.  'Come  close  to  me 
and  tell  it  me  again,  again,  again ! ' 


"Then,  as  she  lay  with  half-closed  eyes,  he  would  pour 
forth  a  flood  of  passionate  words  sufficient  to  satisfy  even 
her  thirsty  ears,  and  afterward,  as  the  gates  clanged 
behind  him,  would  take  up  an  engineering  problem  at 
the  exact  point  at  which  half  arl  hour  before,  on  her 
entrance  into  the  room,  he  had  temporarily  dismissed  it. 


258  NOVEL   NOTES. 

"One  day,  a  privileged  friend  put  bluntly  to  him  this 
question:  'Are  you  playing  for  love  or  vanity?' 

"To  which  the  man,  after  long  pondering,  gave  this 
reply:  '  Ton  my  soul,  Jack,  I  couldn't  tell  you.' 

"Now,  when  a  man  is  in  love  with  a  woman  who  can- 
not make  up  her  mind  whether  she  loves  him  or  not,  we 
call  the  complication  comedy;  where  it  is  a  woman  who 
is  in  earnest  the  result  is  generally  tragedy. 

"They  continued  to  meet  and  to  make  love.  They 
talked — as  people  in  their  position  are  prone  to  talk — of 
the  beautiful  life  they  would  lead  if  it  only  were  not  for 
the  thing  that  was ;  of  the  earthly  paradise — 'or  may  be, 
'earthy'  would  be  the  more  suitable  adjective — they  would 
each  create  for  the  other,  if  only  they  had  the  right  which 
they  hadn't. 

"In  this  work  of  imagination  the  man  trusted  chiefly 
to  his  literary  faculties,  which  were  considerable;  the 
woman  to  her  desires.  Thus,  his  scenes  possessed  a 
grace  and  finish  which  hers  lacked,  but  her  pictures  were 
the  more  vivid.  Indeed,  so  realistic  did  she  paint  them, 
that  to  herself  they  seemed  realities,  waiting  for  her. 
Then  she  would  rise  to  go  toward  them  only  to  strike  her 
feet  against  the  thought  of  the  thing  that  stood  between 
herself  and  them.  At  first  she  only  hated  the  thing,  but 
after  a  while  there  came  an  ugly  look  of  hope  into  her 
eyes. 

"The  time  drew  near  for  the  man  to  return  to  Eng- 
land. The  canal  was  completed,  and  a  day  appointed 
for  the  letting  in  of  the  water.  The  man  determined  to 
make  the  event  the  occasion  of  a  social  gathering.  He 
invited  a  large  number  of  guests,  among  whom  were  the 
woman  and  her  husband,  to  assist  at  the  function.  After- 
ward the  party  were  to  picnic  at  a  pleasant  wooded  spot 
some  three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  the  first  lock, 


NOVEL   NOTES.  259 

"The  ceremony  of  flooding  was  to  be  performed  by 
the  woman,  her  husband's  position  entitling  her  to  this 
distinction.  Between  the  river  and  the  head  of  the  cut- 
ting had  been  left  a  strong  bank  of  earth,  pierced  some 
distance  down  by  a  hole,  which  hole  was  kept  closed  by 
means  of  a  closely  fitting  steel  plate.  The  woman  drew 
the  lever  releasing  this  plate,  and  the  water  rushed 
through  and  began  to  press  against  the  lock  gates. 
When  it  had  attained  a  certain  depth,  the  sluices  were 
raised  and  the  water  poured  down  into  the  deep  basin  of 
the  lock. 

"It  was  an  exceptionally  deep  lock.  The  party  gath- 
ered round  and  watched  the  water  slowly  rising.  The 
woman  looked  down  and  shuddered;  the  man  was  stand- 
ing by  her  side. 

"  'How  deep  it  is!'  she  said. 

"  'Yes,'  he  replied,  'it  holds  thirty  feet  of  water,  when 
full.' 

"The  water  crept  up  inch  by  inch. 

"  'Why  don't  you  open  the  gates,  and  let  it  in  quickly?' 
she  asked. 

"  'It  would  not  do  for  it  to  come  in  too  quickly,'  he 
explained;  'we  shall  half  fill  this  lock,  and  then  open  the 
sluices  at  the  other  end,  and  so  let  the  water  pass 
through.' 

"The  woman  looked  at  the  smooth  stone  walls  and  at 
the  iron-plated  gates. 

"  'I  wonder  what  a  man  would  do,'  she  said,  'if  he  fell 
in,  and  there  was  no  one  near  to  help  him.' 

"The  man  laughed.  'I  think  he  would  stop  there," 
he  answered.  'Come,  the  others  are  waiting  for  us.' 

"He  lingered  a  moment  to  give  some  final  instructions 
to  the  workmen.  'You  can  follow  on  when  you've  made 
all  right,'  he  said,  'and  get  something  to  eat.  There's 


NOVEL   NOTES.  261 

no  need  for  more  than  one  to  stop.'  Then  they  joined 
the  rest  of  the  party,  and  sauntered  on,  laughing  and 
talking,  to  the  picnic  ground. 

"After  lunch  the  party  broke  up,  as  is  the  custom  of 
picnic  parties,  and  wandered  away  in  groups  and  pairs. 
The  man,  whose  duty  as  host  had  hitherto  occupied  all 
his  attention,  looked  for  the  woman,  but  she  was  gone. 

"A  friend  strolled  by,  the  same  that  had  put  the  ques- 
tion to  him  about  love  and  vanity. 

"  'Have  you  quarreled?'  asked  the  friend. 

"  'No,'  replied  the  man. 

"  'I  fancied  you  had,'  said  the  other.  'I  met  her  just 
now  walking  with  her  husband,  of  all  men  in  the  world, 
and  making  herself  quite  agreeable  to  him.' 

"The  friend  strolled  on,  and  the  man  sat  down  on  a 
fallen  tree  and  lighted  a  cigar.  He  smoked  and  thought, 
and  the  cigar  burned  out,  and  he  still  sat  thinking. 

"After  a  while  he  heard  a  faint  rustling  of  the  branches 
behind  him,  and  peering  between  the  interlacing  leaves 
that  hid  him,  saw  the  crouching  figure  of  the  woman 
creeping  through  the  wood. 

"His  lips  were  parted  to  call  her  name,  when  she 
turned  her  listening  head  in  his  direction,  and  his  eyes 
fell  full  upon  her  face.  Something  about  it,  he  could 
not  have  told  what,  struck  him  dumb,  and  the  woman 
crept  on. 

"Gradually  the  nebulous  thoughts  floating  through  his 
brain  began  to  solidify  into  a  tangible  idea,  and  the  man 
unconsciously  started  forward.  After  walking  a  few 
steps  he  broke  into  a  run,  for  the  idea  had  grown  clearer. 
It  continued  to  grow  still  clearer  and  clearer,  and  the 
man  ran  faster  and  faster,  until  at  last  he  found  himself 
racing  madly  toward  the  lock.  As  he  approached  it  he 
looked  round  for  the  watchman  who  ought  to  have  been 


262 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


there,  but  the  man  was  gone  from  his  post.  He  shouted, 
but  if  any  answer  was  returned,  it  was  drowned  by  the 
roar  of  the  rushing  water. 

"He  reached  the  edge  and  looked  down.     Fifteen  feet 
below  him  was  the  reality  of  the  dim  vision  that  had  come 


to  him  a  mile  back  in  the  woods:  the  woman's  husband 
swimming  round  and  round  like  a  rat  in  a  pail. 

"The  river  was  flowing  in  and  out  of  the  lock  at  the 
same  rate,  so  that  the  level  of  the  water  remained  con- 
stant. The  first  thing  the  man  did  was  to  close  the 
lower  sluices  and  then  open  those  in  the  upper  gate  to 
their  fullest  extent.  The  water  began  to  rise. 

"  'Can  you  hold  out?'  he  cried, 


NOVEL   NOTES.  263 

"The  drowning  man  turned  to  him  a  face  already  con- 
torted by  the  agony  of  exhaustion,  and  answered  with  a 
feeble  'No.' 

"He  looked  around  for  something  to  throw  to  the  man. 
A  plank  had  lain  there  in  the  morning,  he  remembered 
stumbling  over  it,  and  complaining  of  its  having  been 
left  there;  he  cursed  himself  now  for  his  care. 

"A  hut  used  by  the  navvies  to  keep  their  tools  in  stood 
about  two  hundred  yards  away;  perhaps  it  had  been 
taken  there,  perhaps  there  he  might  even  find  a  rope. 

"  'Just  one  minute,  old  fellow!'  he  shouted  down,  'and 
I'll  be  back.' 

"But  the  other  did  not  hear  him.  The  feeble  strug- 
gles ceased.  The  face  fell  back  upon  the  water,  the  eyes 
half  closed  as  if  with  weary  indifference.  There  was  no 
time  for  him  to  do  more  than  kick  off  his  riding  boots 
and  jump  in  and  clutch  the  unconscious  figure  as  it  sank. 

"Down  there,  in  that  walled-in  trap,  he  fought  a  long 
fight  with  Death  for  the  life  that  stood  between  him  and 
the  woman.  He  was  not  an  expert  swimmer,  his  clothes 
hampered  him,  he  was  already  blown  with  his  long  race, 
the  burden  in  his  arms  dragged  him  down,  the  water 
rose  slowly  enough  to  make  his  torture  fit  for  Dante's 
hell. 

"At  first  he  could  not  understand  why  this  was  so, 
but  in  glancing  down  he  saw  to  his  horror  that  he  had 
not  properly  closed  the  lower  sluices;  in  each  some  eight 
or  ten  inches  remained  open,  so  that  the  stream  was  pas- 
sing out  nearly  half  as  fast  as  it  came  in.  It  would  be  an- 
other five  and  twenty  minutes  before  the  water  would  be 
high  enough  for  him  to  grasp  the  top. 

"He  noted  where  the  line  of  wet  had  reached  to  on 
the  smooth  stone  wall,  then  looked  again  after  what  he 
thought  must  be  a  lapse  of  ten  minutes,  and  found  it  had 


264  NOVEL  NOTES. 

risen  half  an  inch,  if  that.  Once  or  twice  he  shouted 
for  help,  but  the  effort  taxed  severely  his  already  failing 
breath,  and  his  voice  only  came  back  to  him  in  a  hun- 
dred echoes  from  his  prison  walls. 

"Inch  by  inch  the  line  of  wet  crept  up,  but  the  spend- 
ing of  his  strength  went  on  more  swiftly.  It  seemed  to 
him  as  if  his  inside  were  being  gripped  and  torn  slowly 
out:  his  whole  body  cried  out  to  him  to  let  it  sink  and  lie 
in  rest  at  the  bottom. 

"At  length  his  unconscious  burden  opened  his  eyes 
and  stared  at  him  stupidly,  then  closed  them  again  with 
a  sigh;  a  minute  later  opened  them  once  more  and  looked 
long  and  hard  at  him. 

"'Let  me  go,'  he  said,  'we  shall  both  drown.  You 
can  manage  by  yourself.' 

"He  made  a  feeble  effort  to  release  himself,  but  the 
other  held  him. 

"'Keep  still,  you  fool!'  he  hissed;  'you're  going  to 
get  out  of  this  with  me,  or  I  am  going  down  with  you.' 

"So  the  grim  struggle  went  on  in  silence,  till  the  man, 
looking  up,  saw  the  stone  coping  just  a  little  way  above 
his  head,  made  one  mad  leap  and  caught  it  with  his  finger 
tips,  held  on  an  instant,  then  fell  back  with  a  'plump'  and 
sank;  came  up  and  made  another  dash,  helped  by  the 
impetus  of  his  rise,  caught  the  coping  firmly  this  time 
with  the  whole  of  his  fingers,  hung  on  till  his  eyes  saw 
the  stunted  grass,  till  they  were  both  able  to  scramble  out 
upon  the  bank  and  lie  there,  their  breasts  pressed  close 
against  the  ground,  their  hands  clutching  the  earth,  while 
the  overflowing  water  swirled  softly  round  them. 

"  'After  a  while,  they  raised  themselves  and  looked  at 
one  another. 

'  'Tiring  work,'  said  the  other  man,  with  a  nod  toward 
the  lock. 


NOVEL  NOTES.  265 

'  'Yes,'  answered  the  husband;   'beastly  awkward  not 
being  a  good  swimmer.     How  did  you  know  I  had  fallen 
in?     You  met  my  wife,  I  suppose?' 
'  'Yes,'  said  the  other  man. 

"The  husband  sat  staring  at  a  point  in  the  horizon  for 
some  minutes.  'Do  you  know  what  I  was  wondering 
this  morning?'  said  he. 

"  'No,'  said  the  other  man. 

"  'Whether  I  should  kill  you  or  not.' 
'  'They  told  me,'  he  continued,  after  a  pause,  'a  lot  of 
silly  gossip  which  I  was  cad  enough  to  believe.     I  know 
now  it  wasn't  true,   because — well,  if  it  had  been,  you 
would  not  have  done  what  you  have  done.' 

"He  rose  and  came  across.  'I  beg  your  pardon,'  he 
said,  holding  out  his  hand. 

"'I  beg  yours,'  said  the  other  man,  rising  and 
taking  it;  '  do  you  mind  giving  me  a  hand  with  the 
sluices?' 

"They  set  to  work  to  put  the  lock  right. 

" 'How  did  you  manage  to  fall  in?'  asked  the  other 
man,  who  was  raising  one  of  the  lower  sluices,  without 
looking  round. 

"The  husband  hesitated,  as  if  he  found  the  explana- 
tion somewhat  difficult.  'Oh,'  he  answered  carelessly, 
'the  wife  and  I  were  chaffing,  and  she  said  she'd  often 
seen  you  jump  it,  and' — he  laughed  a  rather  forced  laugh 
— 'she  promised  me  a — a  kiss  if  I  cleared  it.  It  was  a 
foolish  thing  to  do.' 

"  'Yes,  it  was  rather,'  said  the  other  man. 

"A  few  days  afterward  the  man  and  woman  met  at  a 
reception.  He  found  her  in  a  leafy  corner  of  the  garden 
talking  to  some  friends.  She  advanced  to  meet  him, 
holding  out  her  hand.  'What  can  I  say  more  than  thank 
you?'  she  murmured  in  a  low  voice. 


266 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


"The  others  moved  away,  leaving  them  alone.      '  They 
tell  me  you  risked  your  life  to  save  his  ?'  she  said. 
"  'Yes,'  he  answered. 


"  STRUCK    HIM    ACKC 


"She  raised  her  eyes  to  his,    then  struck  him  across 
the  face  with  her  ungloved  hand. 

'  'You  damned  fool ! '   she  whispered. 
"He  seized  her  by  her  white  arms,  and  forced  her  back 


NOVEL  NOTES.  267 

behind  the  orange  trees.  'Do  you  know  why?'  he  said, 
speaking  slowly  and  distinctly;  'because  I  feared  that 
with  him  dead  you  would  want  me  to  marry  you,  and  that, 
talked  about  as  we  have  been,  I  might  find  it  awkward  to 
avoid  doing  so;  because  I  feared  that  without  him  to 
stand  between  us  you  might  prove  an  annoyance  to  me — 
perhaps  come  between  the  woman  I  love,  the  woman  I 
am  going  back  to.  Now  do  you  understand?' 
"  'Yes,'  whispered  the  woman,  and  he  left  her. 

"But  there  are  only  two  people,"  concluded  Jephson, 
"who  do  not  regard  his  saving  of  the  husband's  life  as  a 
highly  noble  and  unselfish  action,  and  they  are  the  man 
himself  and  the  woman." 

We  thanked  Jephson  for  his  story,  and  promised  to 
profit  by  the  moral,  when  discovered.  Meanwhile,  Mac- 
Shaughnassy  said  that  he  knew  a  story  dealing  with  the 
same  theme,  namely,  the  too  close  attachment  of  a 
woman  to  a  strange  man,  which  really  had  a  moral,  which 
moral  was:  don't  have  anything  to  do  with  inventions. 

Brown,  who  had  patented  a  safety  gun,  which  he  had 
never  yet  found  a  man  plucky  enough  to  let  off,  said  it 
was  a  bad  moral.  We  agreed  to  hear  the  particulars, 
and  judge  for  ourselves. 

"This  story,"  commenced  MacShaughnassy,  "comes 
from  Furtwangen,  a  small  town  in  the  Black  Forest. 
There  lived  there  a  very  wonderful  old  fellow  named 
Nicholaus  Geibel.  His  business  was  the  making  of 
mechanical  toys,  at  which  work  he  had  acquired  an 
almost  European  reputation.  He  made  rabbits  that 
would  emerge  from  the  heart  of  a  cabbage,  flop  their  ears, 
smooth  their  whiskers,  and  disappear  again;  cats  that 
would  wash  their  faces,  and  mew  so  naturally  that  dogs 
would  mistake  them  for  real  cats,  and  fly  at  them;  dolls 


268 


NOVEL  NOl^ES. 


with  phonographs  concealed  within  them,  that  would 
raise  their  hats  and  say,  'Good-morning!  how  do  you 
do?'  and  some  that  would  even  sing  a  song. 

"But  he  was  something  more  than  a  mere  mechanic; 
he  was  an  artist.     His  work   was   with   him   a   hobby, 

almost  a  passion. 
His  shop  was 
filled  with  all 
manner  of 
strange  things 
that  never  would, 
or  could,  be 
sold  —  things  he 
had  made  for  the 
pure  love  of  mak- 
ing them.  He 
had  contrived  a 
mechanical  don- 
key that  would 
trot  for  two  hours 
by  means  of 
stored  electrici- 
ty, and  trot,  too, 
much  faster  than 
the  live  article, 
and  with  less 
need  for  exertion 

"  HE   HAD    CONTRIVED    A    MECHANICAL   DONKEY."  On        the        pait        Of 

the  driver;  a  bird 

that  would  shoot  up  into  the  air,  fly  round  and  round  in 
a  circle,  and  drop  to  earth  at  the  exact  spot  from  where 
it  started ;  a  skeleton  that,  supported  by  an  upright  iron 
bar,  would  dance  a  hornpipe;  a  life-size  lady  doll  that 
could  play  the  fiddle;  and  a  gentleman  with  a  hollow 


NOVEL   NOTES.  269 

inside  who  could  smoke  a  pipe  and  drink  more  lager 
beer  than  any  three  average  German  students  put  to- 
gether, which  is  saying  much. 

"Indeed,  it  was  the  belief  of  the  town  that  old  Geibel 
could  make  a  man  capable  of  doing  everything  that  a 
respectable  man  need  want  to  do.  One  day  he  made  a 
man  who  did  too  much,  and  it  came  about  in  this  way: 

"Young  Dr.  Follen  had  a  baby,  and  the  baby  had  a 
birthday.  Its  first  birthday  put  Dr.  Pollen's  household 
into  somewhat  of  a  flurry,  but  on  the  occasion  of  its 
second  birthday,  Mrs.  Dr.  Follen  gave  a  ball  in  honor 
of  the  event.  Old  Geibel  and  his  daughter  Olga  were 
among  the  guests. 

"During  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day  some  three  or 
four  of  Olga's  bosom  friends,  who  had  also  been  present 
at  the  ball,  dropped  in  to  have  a  chat  about  it.  They 
naturally  fell  to  discussing  the  men,  and  to  criticising 
their  dancing.  Old  Geibel  was  in  the  room,  but  he 
appeared  to  be  absorbed  in  his  newspaper,  and  the  girls 
took  no  notice  of  him. 

"  'There  seem  to  be  fewer  men  who  can  dance  at  every 
ball  you  go  to,'  said  one  of  the  girls. 

"'Yes,  and  don't  the  ones  who  can  give  themselves 
airs,'  said  another;  'they  make  quite  a  favor  of  asking 
you.' 

"  'And how  stupidly  they  talk,'  added  a  third.  'They 
always  say  exactly  the  same  things:  "How  charming  you 
are  looking  to-night!"  "Do  you  often  go  to  Vienna?" 
"Oh,  you  should,  it's  delightful."  "What  a  charming 
dress  you  have  on!"  "What  a  warm  day  it  has  been!" 
"Do  you  like  Wagner?"  I  do  wish  they'd  think  of  some- 
thing new.' 

' '  'Oh,  I  never  mind  how  they  talk,'  said  a  fourth.  'If 
a  man  dances  well  he  may  be  a  fool  for  all  I  care.' 


270  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"  'He  generally  is,'  slipped  in  a  thin  girl  rather  spite- 
fully. 

"'I  go  to  a  ball  to  dance,'  continued  the  previous 
speaker,  not  noticing  the  interruption.  'All  I  ask  of  a 
partner  is  that  he  shall  hold  me  firmly,  take  me  round 
steadily,  and  not  get  tired  before  I  do.' 

"  'A  clockwork  figure  would  be  the  thing  for  you,'  said 
the  girl  who  had  interrupted. 

"  'Bravo!'  cried  one  of  the  others,  clapping  her  hands, 
'what  a  capital  idea!' 

"'What's  a  capital  idea?'  they  asked. 

"  'Why,  a  clockwork  dancer,  or,  better  still,  one  that 
would  go  by  electricity  and  never  run  down.' 

"The  girls  took  up  the  idea  with  enthusiasm. 

' '  'Oh,  what  a  lovely  partner  he  would  make,'  said  one; 
'he  would  never  kick  you,  or  tread  on  your  toes.' 

"  'Or  tear  your  dress,'  said  another. 

"  'Or  get  out  of  step.' 

"  'Or  get  giddy  and  lean  on  you.' 

"  'And  he  would  never  want  to  mop  his  face  with  his 
handkerchief.  I  do  hate  to  see  a  man  do  that  after  every 
dance.' 

"  'And  wouldn't  want  to  spend  the  whole  evening  in 
the  supper  room.' 

"  'Why,  with  a  phonograph  inside  him  to  grind  out  all 
the  stock  remarks,  you  would  not  be  able  to  tell  him 
from  a  real  man,' said  the  girl  who  had  first  suggested 
the  idea. 

"  'Oh,  yes,  you  would,'  said  the  thin  girl,  'he  would 
be  so  much  nicer.' 

"Old  Geibel  had  laid  down  his  paper,  and  was  listen- 
ing with  both  his  ears.  On  one  of  the  girls  glancing  in 
his  direction,  however,  he  hurriedly  hid  himself  again 
behind  it. 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


271 


"After  the  girls  were  gone,  he  went  into  his  workshop, 
where  Olga  heard  him  walking  up  and  down,  and  every 
now  and  then  chuckling  to  himself;  and  that  night  he 
talked  to  her  a  good  deal  about  dancing  and  dancing 
men — asked  what  they  usually  said  and  did— what  dances 
were  most  popular — what  steps  were  gone  through,  with 
many  other  questions  bear- 
ing on  the  subject. 

"Then  for  a  couple  of 
weeks  he  kept  much  to 
his  factory,  and  was  very 
thoughtful  and  busy,  though 
prone  at  unexpected  mo- 
ments to  break  into  a  quiet 
low  laugh,  as  if  enjoying 
a  joke  that  nobody  else 
knew  of. 

"A   month    later   another 
ball    took     place    in     Furt- 
wangen.      On    this   occasion 
it  was  given  by  old  Wenzel, 
the  wealthy  timber  merchant,  to  cele- 
brate his  niece's  betrothal,  and  Geibel 
and  his  daughter  were  again   among 
the  invited. 

"When  the  hour  arrived  to  set  out, 
Olga  sought  her  father.     Not  finding 
him  in  the  house,  she  tapped  at  the 
door  of  his  workshop.     He  appeared  in  his  shirt  sleeves, 
looking  hot  but  radiant. 

"  'Don't  wait  for  me,'  he  said,  'you  go  on,  I'll  follow 
you.     I've  got  something  to  finish.' 

"As  she  turned  to  obey  he  called  after  her,  'Tell  them 
I'm  going  to  bring  a  young  man  with  me — such  a  nice 


OLGA  SHOWING  HIM  WHAT 

STBPS   WERB   GONE 

THROUGH. 


272 


NOVKL   NOTES. 


young  man,  and  an  excellent  dancer.     All  the  girls  will 
like  him.'     Then  he  laughed  and  closed  the  door. 

"Her  father  generally  kept  his  doings  secret  from 
everybody,  but  she  had  a  pretty  shrewd  suspicion  of 
what  he  had  been  planning,  and  so,  to  a  certain  extent, 


was  able  to  prepare  the  guests  for  what  was  coming. 
Anticipation  ran  high,  and  the  arrival  of  the  famous 
mechanist  was  eagerly  awaited. 

"At  length  the  sound  of  wheels  was  heard  outside, 
followed  by  a  great  commotion  in  the  passage,  and  old 
Wenzel  himself,  his  jolly  face  red  with  excitement  and 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


273 


suppressed  laughter,  burst  into  the  room  and  announced 
in  stentorian  tones: 

"  'Herr  Geibel — and  a  friend.' 

"Herr  Geibel  and  his  'friend'  entered,  greeted  with 
shouts  of  laughter  and  applause,  and  advanced  to  the 
center  of  the  room. 

"  'Allow  me,  ladies  and  gentlemen,'  said  Herr  Geibel, 


"  MY    FRIEND,    LIEUTENANT   FRITZ. 


'to  introduce  you  to  my  friend,  Lieutenant  Fritz.     Fritz, 
my  dear  fellow,  bow  to  the  ladies  and  gentlemen.' 

"Geibel  placed  his  hand  encouragingly  on  Fritz's 
shoulder,  and  the  lieutenant  bowed  low,  accompanying 
the  action  with  a  harsh  clicking  noise  in  his  throat, 


274  NOVEL  NOTES. 

unpleasantly  suggestive  of  a  death  rattle.  But  that  was 
only  a  detail. 

"  'He  walks  a  little  stiffly'  (old  Geibel  took  his  arm  and 
walked  him  forward  a  few  steps.  He  certainly  did  walk 
stiffly),  'but  then,  walking  is  not  his  forte.  He  is  essen- 
tially a  dancing  man.  I  have  only  been  able  to  teach 
him  the  waltz  as  yet,  but  at  that  he  is  faultless.  Come, 
which  of  you  ladies  may  I  introduce  him  to  as  a  partner? 
He  keeps  perfect  time;  he  never  gets  tired;  he  won't 
kick  you  or  tread  on  your  dress;  he  will  hold  you  as 
firmly  as  you  like,  and  go  as  quickly  or  as  slowly  as  you 
please;  he  never  gets  giddy;  and  he  is  full  of  conversa- 
tion. Come,  speak  up  for  yourself,  my  boy.' 

"The  old  gentleman  twisted  one  of  the  buttons  of  his 
coat,  and  immediately  Fritz  opened  his  mouth,  and  in 
thin  tones  that  appeared  to  proceed  from  the  back  of  his 
head,  remarked  suddenly,  'May  I  have  the  pleasure?' 
and  then  shut  his  mouth  again  with  a  snap. 

"That  Lieutenant  Fritz  had  made  a  strong  impression 
on  the  company  was  undoubted,  yet  none  of  the  girls 
seemed  inclined  to  dance  with  him.  They  looked 
askance  at  his  waxen  face,  with  its  staring  eyes  and  fixed 
smile,  and  shuddered.  At  last  old  Geibel  came  to  the 
girl  who  had  conceived  the  idea. 

"  'It  is  your  own  suggestion,  carried  out  to  the  letter,' 
said  Geibel,  'an  electric  dancer.  You  owe  it  to  the 
gentleman  to  give  him  a  trial.' 

"She  was  a  bright,  saucy  little  girl,  fond  of  a  frolic. 
Her  host  added  his  entreaties,  and  she  consented. 

"Herr  Geibel  fixed  the  figure  to  her.  Its  right  arm 
was  screwed  round  her  waist,  and  held  her  firmly;  its 
delicately  jointed  left  hand  was  made  to  fasten  itself  upon 
her  right.  The  old  toymaker  showed  her  hew  to  regulate 
its  speed,  and  how  to  stop  it,  and  release  herself. 


NOVEL   NOTES.  275 

"  'It  will  take  you  round  in  a  complete  circle,'  he 
explained;  'be  careful  that  no  one  knocks  against  you, 
and  alters  its  course.' 

"The  music  struck  up.  Old  Geibel  put  the  current  in 
motion,  and  Annette  and  her  strange  partner  began  to 
dance. 

"For  a  while  everyone  stood  watching  them.  The 
figure  performed  its  purpose  admirably.  Keeping  per- 
fect time  and  step,  and  holding  its  little  partner  tight 
clasped  in  an  unyielding  embrace,  it  revolved  steadily, 
pouring  forth  at  the  same  time  a  constant  flow  of  squeaky 
conversation,  broken  by  brief  intervals  of  grinding 
silence. 

'  'How  charming  you  are  looking  to-night!'  it  remarked 
in  its  thin,  far-away  voice.  'What  a  lovely  day  it  has 
been!  Do  you  like  dancing?  How  well  our  steps  agree! 
You  will  give  me  another,  won't  you?  Oh,  don't  be  so 
cruel!  What  a  charming  gown  you  have  on!  Isn't 
waltzing  delightful?  I  could  go  on  dancing  forever — 
with  you.  Have  you  had  supper?' 

"As  she  grew  more  familiar  with  the  uncanny  creature, 
the  girl's  nervousness  wore  off,  and  she  entered  into  the 
fun  of  the  thing. 

"  'Oh,  he's  just  lovely,'  she  cried,  laughing,  'I  could 
go  on  dancing  with  him  all  my  life.' 

""Couple  after  couple  now  joined  them,  and  soon  all 
the  dancers  in  the  room  were  whirling  round  behind 
them.  Nicholaus  Geibel  stood  looking  on,  beaming  with 
childish  delight  at  his  success. 

"Old  Wenzel  approached  him,  and  whispered  some- 
thing in  his  ear.  Geibel  laughed  and  nodded,  and  the 
two  worked  their  way  quietly  toward  the  door. 

" 'This  is  the  young  people's  house  to-night,'  said 
Wenzel,  so  soon  as  they  were  outside;  'you  and  I  will 


276  NOVEL   NOTES. 

have  a  quiet  pipe  and  a  glass  of  hock,  over  in  the  count- 
ing house.' 

"Meanwhile  the  dancing  grew  more  fast  and  furious. 
Little  Annette  loosened  the  screw  regulating  her  part- 
ner's rate  of  progress,  and  the  figure  flew  round  with  her 
swifter  and  swifter.  Couple  after  couple  dropped  out 
exhausted,  but  they  only  went  the  faster,  till  at  length 
they  two  remained  dancing  alone. 

"Madder  and  madder  became  the  waltz.  The  music 
lagged  behind;  the  musicians,  unable  to  keep  pace, 
ceased,  and  sat  staring.  The  younger  guests  applauded, 
but  the  older  faces  began  to  grow  anxious. 

"  'Hadn't  you  better  stop,  dear?'  said  one  of  the 
women,  'you'll  make  yourself  so  tired.' 

"But  Annette  did  not  answer. 

11  'I  believe  she's  fainted,'  cried  out  a  girl  who  had 
caught  sight  of  her  face  as  it  was  swept  by. 

"One  of  the  men  sprang  forward  and  clutched  at  the 
figure,  but  its  impetus  threw  him  down  on  to  the  floor, 
where  its  steel-cased  feet  laid  bare  his  cheek.  The  thing 
evidently  did  not  intend  to  part  with  its  prize  easily. 

"Had  anyone  retained  a  cool  head,  the  figure,  one 
cannot  help  thinking,  might  easily  have  been  stopped. 
Two  or  three  men  acting  in  concert  might  have  lifted  it 
bodily  off  the  floor,  or  have  jammed  it  into  a  corner. 
But  few  human  heads  are  capable  of  remaining  cool 
under  excitement.  Those  who  are  not  present  think 
how  stupid  must  have  been  those  who  were;  those  who 
are  reflect  afterward  how  simple  it  would  have  been  to 
do  this,  that,  or  the  other,  if  only  they  had  thought  of  it 
at  the  time. 

"The  women  grew  hysterical.  The  men  shouted 
contradictory  directions  to  one  another.  Two  of  them 
made  a  bungling  rush  at  the  figure,  which  had  the  result 


NOVEL   NOTES,  2^^ 

of  forcing  it  out  of  its  orbit  in  the  center  of  the  room, 
and  sending  it  crashing  against  the  walls  and  furniture. 
A  stream  of  blood  showed  itself  down  the  girl's  white 
frock,  and  followed  her  along  the  floor.  The  affair  was 
becoming  horrible.  The  women  rushed  screaming  from 
the  room.  The  men  followed  them. 

"One  sensible  suggestion  was  made:  'Find  Geibel — 
fetch  Geibel.' 

"No  one  had  noticed  him  leave  the  room,  no  one 
knew  where  he  was.  A  party  went  in  search  of  him. 
The  others,  too  unnerved  to  go  back  into  the  ballroom, 
crowded  outside  the  door  and  listened.  They  could  hear 
the  steady  whir  of  the  wheels  upon  the  polished  floor  as 
the  thing  spun  round  and  round;  the  dull  thud  as  every 
now  and  again  it  dashed  itself  and  its  burden  against 
some  opposing  object  and  ricocheted  off  in  a  new  direc- 
tion. 

"And  everlastingly  it  talked  in  that  thin  ghostly  voice, 
repeating  over  and  over  the  same  formula:  'How  charm- 
ing you  are  looking  to-night!  What  a  lovely  day  it  has 
been!  Oh,  don't  be  so  cruel!  I  could  go  on  dancing 
forever — with  you.  Have  you  had  supper?' 

"Of  course  they  sought  for  Geibel  everywhere  but 
where  he  was.  They  looked  in  every  room  in  the  house, 
then  they  rushed  off  in  a  body  to  his  own  place,  and 
spent  precious  minutes  in  waking  up  his  deaf  old  house- 
keeper. At  last  it  occurred  to  one  of  the  party  that 
Wenzel  was  missing  also,  and  then  the  idea  of  the  count- 
ing house  across  the  yard  presented  itself  to  them,  and 
there  they  found  him. 

"He  rose  up,  very  pale,  and  followed  them;  and  he 
and  old  Wenzel  forced  their  way  through  the  crowd  of 
guests  gathered  outside,  and  entered  the  room,  and 
locked  the  door  behind  them. 


278  NOVEL   NOTES. 

"From  within  there  came  the  muffled  sound  of  low 
voices  and  quick  steps,  followed  by  a  confused  scuffling 
noise,  then  silence,  then  the  low  voices  again. 

"After  a  time  the  door  opened,  and  those  near  it 
pressed  forward  to  enter,  but  old  Wenzel's  broad  shoul- 
ders barred  the  way. 

"  'I  want  you — and  you,  Bekler, '  he  said,  addressing 
a  couple  of  the  elder  men.  His  voice  was  calm,  but  his 
face  was  deadly  white.  'The  rest  of  you,  please  go — get 
the  women  away  as  quickly  as  you  can.* 

"From  that  day  old  Nicholaus  Geibel  confined  himself 
to  the  making  of  mechanical  rabbits  and  cats  that  mewed 
and  washed  their  faces." 

We  agreed  that  the  moral  of  MacShaughnassy's  story 
was  a  good  one. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

SOW  much  more  of  our — fortunately  not  very 
valuable — time  we  devoted  to  this  wonderful 
novel  of  ours  I  cannot  exactly  say.  Turning 
the  dogs-eared  leaves  of  the  dilapidated  diary 
that  lies  before  me,  I  find  the  record  of  our  later  gather- 
ings confused  and  incomplete.  For  weeks  there  does 
not  appear  a  single  word.  Then  comes  an  alarmingly 
businesslike  minute  of  a  meeting  at  which  there  were — 
"Present:  Jephson,  MacShaughnassy,  Brown,  and  Self;" 
and  at  which  the  "Proceedings  commenced  at  8.30." 
At  what  time  the  "proceedings"  terminated,  and  what 
business  was  done,  the  chronicle,  however,  sayeth  not; 
though,  faintly  penciled  in  the  margin  of  the  page,  I 
trace  these  hieroglyphics:  "3-14-9 — 2-67,"  bringing  out 
a  result  of  "rSV  Evidently  an  unremunerative  night. 
On  September  thirteenth,  we  seem  to  have  become  sud- 
denly imbued  with  energy  to  a  quite  remarkable  degree, 
for  I  read  that  we  "Resolved  to  start  the  first  chapter 
at  once" — "at  once"  being  underlined.  After  this 
spurt,  we  rest  until  October  fourth,  when  we  "Discussed 
whether  it  should  be  a  novel  of  plot  or  of  character," 
without — so  far  as  the  diary  affords  indication— arriving 
at  any  definite  decision.  I  observe  that  on  the  same 
day,  "Mac  told  story  about  a  man  who  accidentally 
bought  a  camel  at  a  sale."  Details  of  the  story  are, 
however,  wanting,  which,  perhaps,  is  fortunate  for 
the  reader. 

On  the  sixteenth,  we  were  still  debating  the  character 


28o 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


of  our  hero;  and  I  see  that  I  suggested  "a  man  of  the 

Charley  Buswell  type." 

Poor   Charley,  I  wonder  what  could   have  made  me 

think  of  him  in  connection  with  heroes;  his  lovableness, 
I  suppose — certainly  not  his  heroic  quali- 
ties. I  can  recall  his  boyish  face  now  (it 
was  always  a  boyish  face),  the  tears  stream- 


W        ing  down  it  as  he  sat  in  the  school- 
yard beside  a  bucket,  in  which  he 
was  drowning  three  white  mice  and 
a   tame    rat.      I    sat   down  opposite 
and  cried  too,  while  helping  him  to 
hold  a  saucepan  lid   over  the  poor  little 
creatures,    and    thus    there    sprang    up    a 
friendship  between  us,  which  grew. 
Over  the  grave  of  these  murdered  rodents,  he  took  a 
solemn  oath  never  to  break  school  rules  again,  by  keep- 
ing either  white  mice  or  tame  rats,  but  to  devote  the 
whole  of  his  energies  for  the  future  to  pleasing  his  mas- 


NOVEL  NOTES.  281 

ters,  and  affording  his  parents  some  satisfaction  for  the 
money  being  spent  upon  his  education. 

Seven  weeks  later,  the  pervadence  throughout  the  dor- 
mitory of  an  atmospheric  effect  more  curious  than  pleas- 
ing led  to  the  discovery  that  he  had  converted  his  box 
into  a  rabbit  hutch.  Confronted  with  eleven  kicking 
witnesses,  and  reminded  of  his  former  promises,  he 
explained  that  rabbits  were  not  mice,  and  seemed  to  con- 
sider that  a  new  and  vexatious  regulation  had  been 
sprung  upon  him.  The  rabbits  were  confiscated.  What 
was  their  ultimate  fate  we  never  knew  with  certainty, 
but  three  days  later  we  were  given  rabbit  pie  for  dinner. 
To  comfort  him  I  endeavored  to  assure  him  that  these 
could  not  be  his  rabbits.  He,  however,  convinced  that 
they  were,  cried  steadily  into  his  plate  all  the  time  that 
he  was  eating  them,  and  afterward,  in  the  playground, 
had  a  stand-up  fight  with  a  fourth  form  boy  who  had 
requested  a  second  helping. 

That  evening  he  performed  another  solemn  oath-taking, 
and  for  the  next  month  was  the  model  boy  of  the  school. 
He  read  tracts,  sent  his  spare  pocket  money  to  assist  in 
annoying  the  heathen,  and  subscribed  to  "The  Young 
Christian"  and  "The  Weekly  Rambler,  an  Evangelical 
Miscellany"  (whatever  that  may  mean).  An  undiluted 
course  of  this  pernicious  literature  naturally  created  in 
him  a  desire  toward  the  opposite  extreme.  He  suddenly 
dropped  "The  Young  Christian"  and  "The  Weekly 
Rambler,"  and  purchased  penny  dreadfuls;  and,  taking 
no  further  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  heathen,  saved 
up  and  bought  a  second-hand  revolver  and  a  hundred 
cartridges.  His  ambition,  he  confided  to  me,  was  to 
become  "a  dead  shot,"  and  the  marvel  of  it  is  that  he 
did  not  succeed. 

Of  course,  there  followed  the  usual  discovery  and  con- 


282 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


sequent  trouble,  the  usual  repentance  and  reformation, 
the  usual  determination  to  start  a  new  life. 

Poor  fellow,  he  lived  "starting  a  new  life."  Every 
New  Year's  Day  he  would  start  a  new  life — on  his  birth- 
day— on  other  people's  birthdays.  I  fancy  that,  later  on, 
when  he  came  to  know  their  importance,  he  extended  the 
principle  to  quarter  days. 
"Tidying  up,  and  start- 
ing afresh,"  he  always 
called  it. 

I  think  as  a  young  man 
he  was  better  than  most 
of  us.  But  he  lacked  that 
great  gift  which  is  the  dis- 
tinguishing feature  of  the 
English-speaking  race  all 
the  world  over:  the  gift 
of  hypocrisy.  He  seemed 
incapable  of  doing  the 
slightest  thing  without 
getting  found  out;  a 
grave  misfortune  for  a 
man  to  suffer  from,  this. 

Dear  simple  -  hearted 
fellow,  it  never  occurred 
to  him  that  he  was  as 


1  A    DEAD   SHOT. 


other  men  —  with,  per- 
haps, a  dash  of  straightforwardness  added;  he  regarded 
himself  as  a  monster  of  depravity.  One  evening  I  found 
him  in  his  chambers  engaged  upon  his  Sisyphean  labor 
of  "tidying  up."  A  heap  of  letters,  photographs,  and 
bills  lay  before  him.  He  was  tearing  them  up  and 
throwing  them  into  the  fire. 

I  came  toward  him,  but  he  stopped  me.      "Don't  come 


NOVEL  NOTES.  283 

near  me,"  he  cried,  "don't  touch  me.  I'm  not  fit  to 
shake  hands  with  a  decent  man." 

It  was  the  sort  of  speech  to  make  one  feel  hot  and 
uncomfortable.  I  did  not  know  what  to  answer,  and 
murmured  something  about  his  being  no  worse  than  the 
average. 

"Don't  talk  like  that,"  he  answered  excitedly;  "you 
say  that  to  comfort  me,  I  know;  but  I  don't  like  to  hear 
it.  If  I  thought  other  men  were  like  me  I  should  be 
ashamed  of  being  a  man.  I've  been  a  blackguard,  old 
fellow,  but,  please  God,  it's  not  too  late.  To-morrow 
morning  I  begin  a  new  life." 

He  finished  his  work  of  destruction,  and  then  rang  the 
bell,  and  sent  his  man  downstairs  for  a  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne. 

"My  last  drink,"  he  said,  as  we  clicked  glasses. 
"Here's  to  the  old  life  out  and  the  new  life  in." 

He  took  a  sip  and  flung  the  glass  with  the  remainder 
into  the  fire.  He  was  always  a  little  theatrical,  espe- 
cially when  most  in  earnest. 

For  a  long  while  after  that  I  saw  nothing  of  him. 
Then,  one  evening,  sitting  down  to  supper  at  a  restau- 
rant, I  noticed  him  opposite  to  me  in  company  that  could 
hardly  be  called  doubtful. 

He  flushed  and  came  over  to  me.  "I've  been  an  old 
woman  for  nearly  six  months,"  he  said,  with  a  laugh. 
"I  find  I  can't  stand  it  any  longer." 

"After  all,"  he  continued,  "what  is  life  for  but  to 
live?  It's  only  hypocritical  to  try  and  be  a  thing  we  are 
not.  And  do  you  know" — he  leant  across  the  table, 
speaking  earnestly — "honestly  and  seriously,  I'm  a 
better  man— I  feel  it  and  know  it— when  I  am  my 
natural  self  than  when  I  am  trying  to  be  an  impossible 
saint." 


284  NOVEL  NOTES. 

That  was  the  mistake  he  made;  he  always  ran  to 
extremes.  He  thought  that  an  oath,  if  it  were  only  big 
enough,  would  frighten  away  Human  Nature,  instead  of 
serving  only  as  a  challenge  to  it.  Accordingly,  each 
reformation  was  more  intemperate  than  the  last,  to  be 
duly  followed  by  a  greater  swing  of  the  pendulum  in  the 
opposite  direction. 

Being  now  in  a  thoroughly  reckless  mood,  he  went  the 
pace  rather  hotly.  Then,  one  evening,  without  any  pre- 
vious warning,  I  had  a  note  from  him.  "Come  round 
and  see  me  on  Thursday.  It  is  my  wedding  eve." 

I  went.  He  was  once  more  "tidying  up."  All  his 
drawers  were  open,  and  on  the  table  were  piled  packs  of 
cards,  betting  books,  and  much  written  paper,  all,  as 
before,  in  course  of  demolition. 

I  smiled;  I  could  not  help  it,  and,  no  way  abashed, 
he  laughed  his  usual  hearty,  honest  laugh. 

"I  know,"  he  exclaimed  gayly,  "but  this  is  not  the 
same  as  the  others." 

Then,  laying  his  hand  on  my  shoulder,  and  speaking 
with  the  sudden  seriousness  that  comes  so  readily  to 
shallow  natures,  he  said,  "God  has  heard  my  prayer,  old 
friend.  He  knows  I  am  weak.  He  has  sent  down  an 
angel  out  of  heaven  to  help  me." 

He  took  her  portrait  from  the  mantelpiece  and  handed 
it  me.  It  seemed  to  me  the  face  of  a  hard,  narrow 
woman,  but,  of  course,  he  raved  about  her. 

As  he  talked,  there  fluttered  to  the  ground  from  the 
heap  before  him  an  old  restaurant  bill,  and,  stooping,  he 
picked  it  up  and  held  it  in  his  hand,  musing. 

"Have  you  ever  noticed  how  the  scent  of  the  cham- 
pagne and  the  candles  seems  to  cling  to  these  things?" 
he  said  lightly,  sniffing  carelessly  at  it.  "I  wonder 
what's  become  of  her?" 


NOVEL   NOTES.  285 

"I  think  I  wouldn't  think  about  her  at  all  to-night,"  I 
answered. 

He  loosened  his  hand,  letting  the  paper  fall  into  the 
fire. 

"My  God!"  he  cried  vehemently,  "when  I  think  of 
all  the  wrong  I  have  done — the  irreparable,  ever-widening 
ruin  I  have  perhaps  brought  into  the  world — O  God! 
spare  me  a  long  life  that  I  may  make  amends.  Every 
hour,  every  minute  of  it  shall  be  devoted  to  your  ser- 
vice." 

As  he  stood  there,  with  his  eager  boyish  eyes  upraised, 
a  light  seemed  to  fall  upon  his  face  and  illumine  it.  I 
had  pushed  the  photograph  back  to  him,  and  it  lay  upon 
the  table  before  him.  He  knelt  and  pressed  his  lips  to  it. 

"With  your  help,  my  darling;  and  His,"  he  murmured. 

The  next  morning  he  was  married.  She  was  a  well- 
meaning  girl,  though  her  piety,  as  is  the  case  with  most 
people,  was  of  the  negative  order;  and  her  antipathy  to 
things  evil  much  stronger  than  her  sympathy  with  things 
good.  For  a  much  longer  time  than  I  had  expected  she 
kept  him  straight — perhaps  a  little  too  straight.  But  at 
last  there  came  the  inevitable  relapse. 

I  called  upon  him,  in  answer  to  an  excited  message,  and 
found  him  in  the  depths  of  despair.  It  was  the  old 
story,  human  weakness,  combined  with  lamentable  lack 
of  the  most  ordinary  precautions  against  being  found 
out.  He  gave  me  details,  interspersed  with  exuberant 
denunciations  of  himself,  and  I  undertook  the  delicate 
task  of  peacemaker. 

It  was  a  weary  work,  but  eventually  she  consented  to 
forgive  him.  His  joy,  when  I  told  him,  was  boundless. 

"How  good  women  are!"  he  said,  while  tears  came 
into  his  eyes.  "But  she  shall  not  repent  it.  Please 
God,  from  this  day  forth,  I'll — 


286 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


He  stopped,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  the  doubt 
of  himself  crossed  his  mind.  As  I  sat  watching  him,  the 
joy  died  out  of  his  face,  and  the  first  hint  of  age  passed 
over  it. 

"I  seem  to  have  been  'tidying  up  and  starting  afresh' 
all  my  life,"  he  said  wearily;  '  'I'm  beginning  to  see  where 
the  untidiness  lies,  and  the  only  way  to  get  rid  of  it." 

I  did  not  understand  the  meaning  of  his  words  at  the 
time,  but  learnt  it  later  on. 

He  strove  according  to  his  strength,  and  fell.  By  a 
miracle  his  transgression  was  not  discovered.  The  facts 


LYING    DEAD. 


came  to  light  long  afterward,  but  at  the  time  there  were 
only  two  who  knew. 

It  was  his  last  failure.  Late  one  evening  I  received  a 
hurriedly  scrawled  note  from  his  wife  begging  me  to 
come  round. 

"A  terrible  thing  has  happened,"  it  ran;  "Charley 
went  up  to  his  study  after  dinner,  saying  he  had  some 
'tidying  up,'  as  he  calls  it,  to  do,  and  did  not  wish  to  be 
disturbed.  In  clearing  out  his  desk -he  must  have 
handled  carelessly  the  revolver  that  he  always  keeps 
there,  not  remembering,  I  suppose,  that  it  was  loaded. 


NOVEL   NOTES.  287 

We  heard  a  report,  and  on  rushing  into  the  room  found 
him  lying  dead  on  the  floor.  The  bullet  had  passed 
right  through  his  heart." 

Hardly  the  type  of  man  for  a  hero!  And  yet  I  do  not 
know.  Perhaps  he  fought  harder  than  many  a  man  who 
conquers.  In  the  world's  courts,  we  are  compelled  to 
judge  on  circumstantial  evidence  only,  and  the  chief  wit- 
ness, the  man's  soul,  cannot  very  well  be  called. 

I  remember  the  subject  of  bravery  being  discussed  one 
evening  at  a  dinner  party,  when  a  German  gentleman 
present  related  an  anecdote,  the  hero  of  which  was  a 
young  Prussian  officer. 

"I  cannot  give  you  his  name,"  our  German  friend 
explained — "the  man  himself  told  me  the  story  in  con- 
fidence; and  though  he  personally,  by  virtue  of  his  after 
record,  could  afford  to  have  it  known,  there  are  other 
reasons  why  it  should  not  be  bruited  about. 

"How  I  learned  it  was  in  this  way.  For  a  dashing 
exploit  performed  during  the  brief  war  against  Austria 
he  had  been  presented  with  the  Iron  Cross.  This,  as 
you  are  well  aware,  is  the  most  highly  prized  decoration 
in  our  army;  men  who  have  earned  it  are  usually  con- 
ceited about  it,  and,  indeed,  have  some  excuse  for  being 
so.  He,  on  the  contrary,  kept  his  locked  in  a  drawer  of 
his  desk,  and  never  wore  it  except  when  compelled  by 
official  etiquette.  The  mere  sight  of  it  seemed  to  be 
painful  to  him.  One  day  I  asked  him  the  reason.  We 
are  very  old  and  close  friends,  and  he  told  me. 

"The  incident  occurred  when  he  was  a  young  lieuten- 
ant. Indeed,  it  was  his  first  engagement.  By  some 
means  or  another  he  had  become  separated  from  his 
company,  and,  unable  to  regain  it,  had  attached  himself 
to  a  Landwehr  regiment  stationed  at  the  extreme  right  of 
the  Prussian  lines. 


288  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"The  enemy's  effort  was  mainly  directed  against  the 
left  center,  and  for  a  while  our  young  lieutenant  was 
nothing  more  than  a  distant  spectator  of  the  battle.  Sud- 
denly, however,  the  attack  shifted,  and  the  regiment 
found  itself  occupying  an  extremely  important  and  criti- 
cal position.  The  shells  began  to  fall  unpleasantly  near, 
and  the  order  was  given  to  'grass.' 

"The  men  fell  upon  their  faces  and  waited.  The 
shells  plowed  the  ground  around  them,  smothering  them 
with  dirt.  A  horrible,  griping  pain  started  in  my  young 
friend's  stomach,  and  began  creeping  upward.  His 
head  and  heart  both  seemed  to  be  shrinking  and  growing 
cold.  A  shot  tore  off  the  head  of  the  man  next  to  him, 
sending  the  blood  spurting  into  his  face ;  a  minute  later 
another  ripped  open  the  back  of  a  poor  fellow  lying  to 
the  front  of  him. 

"His  body  seemed  not  to  belong  to  himself  at  all.  A 
strange,  shriveled  creature  seemed  to  have  taken  posses- 
sion of  it.  He  raised  his  head,  and  peered  about  him. 
He  and  three  soldiers — youngsters,  like  himself,  who 
had  never  before  been  under  fire — appeared  to  be  utterly 
alone  in  that  hell.  They  were  the  end  men  of  the  regi- 
ment, and  the  configuration  of  the  ground  completely 
hid  them  from  their  comrades. 

"They  glanced  at  each  other,  these  four,  and  read  one 
another's  thoughts.  Leaving  their  rifles  lying  on  the 
grass,  they  commenced  to  crawl  stealthily  upon  their 
bellies,  the  lieutenant  leading,  the  other  three  following. 

"Some  few  hundred  yards  in  front  of  them  rose  a 
small,  steep  hill.  If  they  could  reach  this  it  would  shut 
them  out  of  sight.  They  hastened  on,  pausing  every 
thirty  yards  or  so  to  lie  still  and  pant  for  breath,  then 
hurrying  on  again,  quicker  than  before,  tearing  their  flesh 
against  the  broken  ground. 


NOVEL   NOTES. 


289 


"At  last  they  reached  the  base  of  the  slope,  and  slink- 
ing a  little  way  round  it,  raised  their  heads  and  looked 
back.  Where  they  were  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  be 
seen  from  the  Prussian  lines. 

"They  sprang  to  their  feet  and  broke  into  a  wild  race. 
A  dozen  steps  further      r- 
they    came    face     to 
face  with  an  Austrian 
field  battery. 

"The  demon  that 
had  taken  possession 
of  them  had  been 
growing  stronger  the 
further  they  had  fled. 
They  were  not  men, 
they  were  animals 
mad  with  fear. 
Driven  by  the  same 
frenzy  that  prompted 
other  panic  -  stricken 
creatures  to  once  rush 
down  a  steep  place 
into  the  sea,  these 
four  men,  with  a  yell, 
flung  themselves, 
sword  in  hand,  upon 
the  whole  battery; 
and  the  whole  bat- 
tery, bewildered  by  the  suddenness  and  unexpectedness 
of  the  attack,  thinking  the  entire  battalion  was  upon 
them,  gave  way,  and  rushed  pell-mell  down  the  hill. 

"With  the  sight  of  those  flying  Austrians  the  fear,  as 
independently  as  it  had  come  to  him,  left  him,  and  he 
felt  only  a  desire  to  hack  and  kill,  The  four  Prussians 


2  90 


NOVEL  NOTES. 


flew  after  them,  cutting  and  stabbing  at  them  as  they 

ran;  and  when  the  Prussian  cavalry  came  thundering  up, 

they  found  my  young  lieutenant  and  his  three  friends  had 

captured  two  guns  and  accounted  for  half  a  score  of  the 

enemy. 

.    "Next  day  he  was  summoned  to  headquarters. 

'  'Will  you  be  good  enough  to  remember  for  the  future, 
sir,'  said  the  Chief  of  the  Staff,  'that  His  Majesty  does 

not  require  his  lieu- 
tenants to  execute 
maneuvers  on  their 
own  responsibility, 
and  also  that  to  at- 
tack a  battery  with 
three  men  is  not  war, 
but  damned  tom- 
foolery. You  ought 
to  be  court-martialed, 
sir!' 

"Then,  in  some- 
what different  tones, 
the  old  soldier  added, 
his  face  softening  into 
a  smile:  'However, 
alertness  and  daring, 
my  young  friend,  are 
good  qualities,  espe- 
cially when  crowned 
with  success.  If  the 

Austrians  had  once  succeeded  in  planting  a  battery  on 
that  hill  it  might  have  been  difficult  to  dislodge  them. 
Perhaps,  under  the  circumstances,  His  Majesty  may 
overlook  your  indiscretion." 

"  'His  Majesty  not  only  overlooked  it,  but  bestowed 


'  REMEMBER    FOR  THE   FUTU 


NOVEL  NOTES.  291 

upon  me  the  Iron  Cross,'  concluded  my  friend.  'For 
the  credit  of  the  army,  I  judged  it  better  to  keep  quiet 
and  take  it.  But,  as  you  can  understand,  the  sight  of  it 
does  not  recall  very  pleasurable  reflections.'  " 

To  return  to  my  diary,  I  see  that  on  Novmeber  four- 
teenth we  held  another  meeting.  But  at  this  there  were 
present  only  "Jephson,  MacShaughnassy,  and  Self";  and 
of  Brown's  name  I  find  henceforth  no  further  trace.  On 
Christmas  Eve  we  three  met  again,  and  my  notes  inform 
me  that  MacShaughnassy  brewed  some  whisky  punch, 
according  to  a  recipe  of  his  own,  a  record  suggestive  of 
a  sad  Christmas  for  all  three  of  us.  No  particular  busi- 
ness appears  to  have  been  accomplished  on  either  occa- 
sion. 

Then  there  is  a  break  until  February  eighth,  and  the  as- 
semblage has  shrunk  to  "Jephson  and  Self."  With  a 
final  flicker,  as  of  a  dying  candle,  my  diary  at  this  point, 
however,  grows  luminous,  shedding  much  light  upon  that 
evening's  conversation. 

Our  talk  seems  to  have  been  of  many  things — of  most 
things,  in  fact,  except  our  novel.  Among  other  subjects 
we  spoke  of  literature  generally. 

"I  am  tired  of  this  eternal  cackle  about  books,"  said 
Jephson;  "these  columns  of  criticism  to  every  line  of 
writing;  these  endless  books  about  books;  these  shrill 
praises  and  shrill  denunciations;  this  silly  worship  of 
novelist  Tom;  this  silly  hate  of  poet  Dick;  this  silly 
squabbling  over  playwright  Harry.  There  is  no  sober- 
ness, no  sense  in  it  all.  One  would  think,  to  listen  to 
the  High  Priests  of  Culture,  that  man  was  made  for 
literature,  not  literature  for  man.  Thought  existed 
before  the  Printing  Press;  and  the  men  who  wrote  the 
best  hundred  books  never  read  them.  Books  have  their 


292  NOVEL  NOTES. 

place  in  the  world,  but  they  are  not  its  purpose.  They 
are  things  side  by  side  with  beef  and  mutton,  the  scent 
of  the  sea,  the  touch  of  a  hand,  the  memory  of  a  hope, 
and  all  the  other  items  in  the  sum  total  of  our  three  score 
years  and  ten.  Yet  we  speak  of  them  as  though  they 
were  the  voice  of  life  instead  of  merely  its  faint,  distorted 
echo.  Tales  are  delightful  as  tales — sweet  as  primroses 
after  the  long  winter,  restful  as  the  cawing  of  rooks  at 
sunset.  But  we  do  not  write  'tales'  now;  we  prepare 
'human  documents'  and  dissect  souls." 

He  broke  off  abruptly  in  the  midst  of  his  tirade.  "Do 
you  know  what  these  'psychological  studies'  that  are  so 
fashionable  just  now  always  make  me  think  of?"  he 
said.  "One  monkey  examining  another  monkey  for 
fleas." 

"And  what,  after  all,  does  our  dissecting  pen  lay 
bare?"  he  continued.  "Human  nature?  or  merely  some 
more  or  less  unsavory  undergarment,  disguising  and  dis- 
figuring human  nature?  There  is  a  story  told  of  an 
elderly  tramp,  who,  overtaken  by  misfortune,  was  com- 
pelled to  retire  for  a  while  to  the  seclusion  of  Portland. 
His  hosts,  desiring  to  see  as  much  as  possible  of  their 
guest  during  his  limited  stay  with  them,  proceeded  to 
bathe  him.  They  bathed  him  twice  a  day  for  a 
week,  each  time  learning  more  of  him;  until  at  last 
they  reached  a  flannel  shirt.  And  with  that  they  had 
to  be  content,  soap  and  water  proving  powerless  to 
go  further. 

"The  tramp  appears  to  me  symbolical  of  mankind. 
Human  nature  has  worn  its  conventions  for  so  long  that 
its  habit  has  grown  on  to  it.  In  this  nineteenth  century 
it  is  impossible  to  say  where  the  clothes  of  custom  end 
and  the  natural  man  begins.  Our  virtues  are  taught  to 


NOVEL  NOTES.  293 

us  as  a  branch  of  'Deportment* ;  our  vices  are  the  recog- 
nized vices  of  our  reign  and  set.  Our  religion  hangs 
ready-made  beside  our  cradle  to  be  buttoned  upon  us  by 
loving  hands.  Our  tastes  we  acquire,  with  difficulty; 
our  sentiments,  we  learn  by  rote.  At  cost  of  infinite 
suffering,  we  study  to  love  whisky  and  cigars,  high  art 
and  classical  music.  In  one  age  we  admire  Byron  and 
drink  sweet  champagne;  twenty  years  later  it  is  more 
fashionable  to  prefer  Shelley,  and  we  like  our  champagne 
dry.  At  school  we  are  told  that  Shakspere  was  a  great 
poet,  and  that  the  Venus  di  Medici  is  a  fine  piece  of 
sculpture ;  and  so  for  the  rest  of  our  lives  we  go  about 
saying  what  a  great  poet  we  think  Shakspere,  and  that 
there  is  no  piece  of  sculpture,  in  our  opinion,  so  fine  as 
the  Venus  di  Medici.  If  we  are  Frenchmen  we  adore 
our  mother;  if  Englishmen  we  love  dogs  and  virtue. 
We  grieve  for  the  death  of  a  near  relative  twelve  months; 
but  for  a  second  cousin,  we  sorrow  only  three.  The 
good  man  has  his  regulation  excellencies  to  strive  after, 
his  regulation  sins  to  repent  of.  I  knew  a  good  man  who 
was  quite  troubled  because  he  was  not  proud,  and  could 
not,  therefore,  with  any  reasonableness,  pray  for  humility. 
In  society  one  must  needs  be  cynical  and  mildly  wicked; 
in  Bohemia  orthodoxly  unorthodox.  I  remember  my 
mother  expostulating  with  a  friend,  an  actress,  who  had 
left  a  devoted  husband  and  eloped  with  a  disagreeable, 
ugly,  little  low  comedian  (I  am  speaking  of  long,  long 
ago). 

"  'You  must  be  mad,'  said  my  mother;  'what  on  earth 
induced  you  to  take  such  a  step?' 

"  'My  dear  Emma,'  replied  the  lady;  'what  else  was 
there  for  me?  You  know  I  can't  act.  I  had  to  do 
something  to  show  I  was  an  artiste ! ' 


294  NOVEL  NOTES. 

"We  are  dressed-up  marionettes.  Our  voice  is  the 
voice  of  the  unseen  showman,  Convention ;  our  very 
movements  of  passion  and  pain  are  but  in  answer  to  his 
jerk.  A  man  resembles  one  of  those  gigantic  bundles 
that  one  sees  in  nursemaids'  arms.  It  is  very  bulky  and 
very  long;  it  looks  a  mass  of  delicate  lace  and  rich  fur 
and  fine  woven  stuffs;  and  somewhere,  hidden  out  of 
sight  among  the  finery,  there  is  a  tiny  red  bit  of  bewil- 
dered humanity,  with  no  voice  but  a  foolish  cry. 

"There  is  but  one  story,"  he  went  on,  after  a  long 
pause,  uttering  his  own  thoughts  aloud  rather  than  speak- 
ing tome.  "We  sit  at  our  desks  and  think  and  think, 
and  write  and  write,  but  the  story  is  ever  the  same.  Men 
told  it  and  men  listened  to  it  many  years  ago;  we  are 
telling  it  to  one  another  to-day;  we  shall  be  telling  it  to 
one  another  a  thousand  years  hence;  and  the  story  is: 
'Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  a  man  and  a  woman  who 
loved  him.'  The  little  critic  cries  that  it  is  not  new, 
and  asks  for  something  fresh,  thinking — as  children  do — 
that  there  are  strange  things  in  the  world." 

At  that  point,  my  notes  end,  and  there  is  nothing  in 
the  book  beyond.  Whether  any  of  us  thought  any  more 
of  the  novel,  whether  we  ever  met  again  to  discuss  it, 
whether  it  were  ever  begun,  whether  it  were  ever  aban- 
doned— I  cannot  say.  There  is  a  fairy  story  that  I  read 
many,  many  years  ago  that  has  never  ceased  to  haunt 
me.  It  told  how  a  little  boy  once  climbed  a  rainbow. 
And  at  the  end  of  the  rainbow,  just  behind  the  clouds, 
he  found  a  wondrous  city.  Its  houses  were  of  gold,  and 
its  streets  were  paved  with  silver,  and  the  light  that  shone 
upon  it  was  as  the  light  that  lies  upon  the  sleeping  world 
at  dawn.  In  this  city  there  were  palaces  so  beautiful 


NOVEL  NOTES.  295 

that  merely  to  look  upon  them  satisfied  all  desires; 
temples  so  perfect  that  they  who  knelt  therein  were 
cleansed  of  sin.  And  all  the  men  who  dwelt  in  this  won- 
drous city  were  great  and  good,  and  the  women  fairer 
than  the  women  of  a  young  man's  dreams.  And  the 
name  of  the  city  was  "The  city  of  the  things  men  meant 
to  do." 


